


Operation: Pendragon

by gelowo93



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drunk Sex, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Nipple Piercings, Porn, Romance, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-26 18:08:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2661458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gelowo93/pseuds/gelowo93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin Emrys is the best undercover officer Camelot Police have. When the terrorist organisation murdering sorcerers proves difficult to find, Merlin is sent to befriend Arthur Pendragon to find out whether his father is involved in the murders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Operation: Pendragon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [b0b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/b0b/gifts).



> Thanks to J for beta-ing this for me, any remaining mistakes are entirely my own. And a big thanks for everyone's support whenever I was struggling with writing this.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own BBC Merlin and am not profiting from this work.

_Surname: Pendragon_

_Forename(s): Arthur_

_Date of Birth: 26/05/1982_

_Hair Colour: Blonde (natural)_

_Eye Colour: Blue_

_Parents: Uther Pendragon, Ygraine Pendragon (Deceased)_

_Siblings: Morgana LeFay_

_Profile Summary: Graduated from the University of Camelot with a First class degree with Honours in Pharmacology and a Masters in Enterprise. Currently head of Marketing department at Pendragon Pharmaceuticals. Close but rocky relationship with his sister. Unstable relationship with father – has been known to have public arguments but appear to still work well together._

_Has shown no evidence of discriminating against sorcerers. Gives regular donations to human rights and medical research charities. Unlikely to be involved with S.C.F._

_History of many short term relationships._

* * *

 

Merlin didn’t need to have the file folder containing Arthur Pendragon’s profile with him. He’d spent the last week reading it, highlighting it, and memorising it. He went over the important details in his mind now, as he stood behind a newspaper stand from where, moments before, he had watched Pendragon enter his regular coffee shop, _The Coffee House_. Merlin saw him settle at a table in the window, place his bag on a nearby chair, and pull out his laptop.

Merlin grabbed a newspaper from the stand, paid for it, and tucked it under his arm. Walking down the street and towards the coffee shop, Merlin checked his reflection in a shop window. He didn’t think he’d get used to the curly hair brushing the tips of his ears, nor the dark green eyes looking back at him through the black rectangular glasses. He’d had to adjust his facial features too; a widening of his lips, lengthening his nose slightly, and making his ears less prominent. They were subtle changes that on their own no one would notice, but together made Merlin unrecognisable.

The important thing was that the illusion was holding . It was supposed to require a spell to remove it, but Merlin wasn’t used to using his magic for long term spells and he knew he was going to struggle with trying not to check in a mirror every few minutes to make sure his appearance hadn’t suddenly reverted to normal.

Merlin crossed the road and entered the coffee shop. It was small and narrow, with an old wooden staircase with uneven steps leading to another seating area upstairs. The seats and tables were mis-matched as if they’d been bought from charity shops and second hand stores, and there were scratches and dents in the wooden floor from where they had been dragged around to rearrange them. The walls looked like they hadn’t been redecorated since the 60’s; the wallpaper was a brightly coloured floral monstrosity that was thankfully mostly covered by the bookcases scattered around the room, all bearing old leather bound books. The smell of freshly brewed coffee along with the classical music playing over the speakers gave the place a distinctly cosy feel.

Or it would have, if the place hadn’t been packed. Merlin joined the end of the queue where it was almost out the door, and he could barely see Pendragon over the tops of other people’s heads. Customers were having to shout their orders at the waiting staff to be heard, and it was impossible to manoeuvre around the tables and chairs in the little café without having to ask someone to move.

Merlin kept glancing around the room, pretending to look for an empty seat but really keeping an eye on Pendragon. He was staring intently at his laptop screen and typing furiously. The spare chair at his table still hadn’t been occupied, and Merlin hoped that the people ahead of him in the queue would go upstairs to find an empty table rather than bother someone who was obviously busy.

The queue moved slowly, but eventually Merlin reached the front and he was able to order. He paid, and the bartender passed him his cup of tea. Merlin turned away from the bar and paused. He let his eyes wander over all of the tables until they fell on the empty seat at Pendragon’s table. Pendragon hadn’t looked up once in the time Merlin had been watching him, and he didn’t look up as Merlin slowly made his way over to his table, careful not to spill any of his tea.

“Excuse me,” Merlin said when he was standing next to Pendragon, smiling his politest sorry-I’m-disturbing-you smile. “Do you mind if I sit there?”

Pendragon turned away from his laptop for the first time and looked around the room. A crease appeared between his eyebrows as if he hadn’t noticed the little café fill up around him and was surprised to see all the tables occupied. His gaze then moved to Merlin, looking him up and down.

Merlin stared back, forcing himself to stay calm and keep the smile on his face. This was always the hardest bit, making contact. Merlin found himself growing nervous no matter how many times he had done this, but he’d learnt to ignore it. He’d been trained for this, he had Pendragon’s profile memorised, he even had a script if things started going wrong. This meeting, at least, had been planned down to the minute. There was no reason to worry.

Up close, Pendragon was much better looking than the photos Merlin had seen made him out to be. His blonde hair fell over his forehead artistically, but Merlin was under no assumption that Pendragon had spent hours perfecting the look; most likely he’d woken up with it like that. Pendragon’s deep blue eyes sparkled like the ocean on a sunny day, and his jawline was perfectly angular, covered slightly by two day old scruff.

At least Pendragon was eye candy, Merlin thought. It might make the mission more bearable if it turns out to be unsuccessful.

Pendragon reached over to move his bag from the spare chair and placed it beside his own.

“Sure.” Pendragon went back to his laptop.

The mission was officially a go.

Merlin sat down, put the cup of tea on the table and pulled the newspaper out from under his arm. Without a word, Pendragon adjusted his laptop to give Merlin more space.

The front page of the newspaper was mostly taken up by a photograph of a young woman. It was blurry and obviously cropped from a larger image. The woman was pale, her dark brown hair tied back in an up-do, and her plump red lips were smiling. Merlin didn’t have to read the article to know that the woman was Helen Mora, had been a talented singer as well as a sorcerer, and was now dead.

Had been murdered.

Merlin turned the page, and skipped past the double-page spread about the murder. He had been at the press conference the previous day, and even if he hadn’t been, the murder followed the same pattern as all the others: the victim had been a sorcerer, they had gone missing one night while walking home from work, or a pub, or (as in one high profile case) school, their body was found several days later in another part of town, and autopsy results showed that they had been pumped full of chemicals. The first time it had happened it had been a suspected suicide, but here they were, six months and ten dead sorcerers later with all the bodies being found within a two-mile radius of each other, and no one believed it was suicide anymore.

Merlin also knew information that the police were keeping from the public, like the fact that the chemical combinations found in the victims’ bloodstreams were different each time, and that each victim had been found with a note hidden in their clothing. Some of them had been Bible quotes condemning witchcraft, some had been bragging about the killings, others had been general threats to sorcerers, stating that they would rid the world of the unnatural beings. All of the notes had been signed with the initials _S.C.F._ , only the latest had informed them that the acronym stood for the _Sorcerer Correction Facility_.

And suddenly everything had started to fall into place. They had already guessed that it was the use of magic that connected the victims, and once that had been discovered it hadn’t been hard to jump to the motive being malice. Now though, the chemicals found in the victims had an explanation – they were trying to ‘cure’ sorcerers, and didn’t mind killing a few in the process.

The investigation had accelerated from this point. They still had next to no idea of who was directly behind the murders, but several key people with a known dislike of sorcerers and who had the means to facilitate the murders had been picked out, one of whom was Uther Pendragon.

It was Merlin’s job to find out whether he was guilty.

Merlin flicked through the newspaper, pausing to read some of the shorter articles. He stopped when he reached the job vacancies, rummaging in his pocket for a pen.

He took his time looking down the long list of vacancies, tapping his pen on the table as he did. Occasionally, Merlin circled one or crossed one out altogether. The latter was often joined by a loud sigh and a mumble about how there’s no point in getting a degree if you can’t get a job. After a few minutes of this, Merlin saw Pendragon momentarily glance up at him before returning his attention to his work.

A while later, a hand appeared around the corner of Pendragon’s laptop, batted about for a moment, then Pendragon looked over the top. Merlin noticed the way he looked at the circled vacancies before grabbing his coffee and hiding behind his laptop again.

That was good enough for Merlin.

He flipped back a few pages until he found the puzzle section and started the crossword. He wasn’t bad at them, but as far as he could remember he’d never finished one on his own. A quick glance at this one was all he needed to know that he wouldn’t have to fake idiocy.

 _Fantasy in late June_ – that had to be midsummer night’s dream. Merlin wrote it in faintly.

 _Lazy_ with four letters – could it be idle?

Merlin went down the list of clues, writing in the few answers that he knew. He was on his second run through of the clues when he checked the time; he’d been there nearly half an hour. Pendragon normally only stayed for about an hour, and he’d sat down at least ten minutes before Merlin.

Merlin glanced up at Pendragon. He was still staring at his laptop screen but he had one elbow propped up on the table and was holding his head in his hand.

Merlin took a deep breath.

“What’s another word for surviving? Six letters,” he said. Pendragon didn’t respond. Merlin looked up and found Pendragon staring at him. “The crossword,” Merlin explained.

It took Pendragon a moment, but eventually he spoke.

“Do you have any letters?”

“It begins with an E and the second to last letter is an N.”

Pendragon typed something on his laptop, looked at it with a frown before his face relaxed.

“Extant.”

Merlin looked down at the crossword. It seemed to fit.

“Great. Thanks,” Merlin said with a smile, writing the letters into their boxes. “Don’t suppose you know of any noble gases with five letters too? Ends in O-N.”

“Half the noble gases end in O-N,” Pendragon said with a smirk. “Any other letters?”

“Nope – wait, if six down is extravagant then it begins with an X.”

“Xenon,” Pendragon answered immediately. “X-E-N-O-N.”

Pendragon closed the lid of his laptop, pushing it out of the way so he could get a better look at the crossword. They spent the next ten minutes finishing it off, which mostly consisted of Pendragon telling Merlin a word and where to put it. A couple of times they disagreed on what a word could be, and it would turn into a ridiculous minute long argument after which they both decided to leave it until they had more letters. After Pendragon had told him the answer to the last clue and watched Merlin write it down, he sat back in his seat, a satisfied smile on his face.

“Are the crosswords helping you keep busy while you’re looking for a job? I saw you looking at the vacancies earlier.”

“Yeah, something like that,” Merlin said. He closed the newspaper and folded it up. “They give me a break from the never-ending online applications.”

“Is it that bad?”

“You’ve no idea. I’ve been looking for about a month now and I’ve only heard back from one, and that was to tell me I hadn’t got it.”

Pendragon winced.

“What job area are you interested in?”

“HR mostly, at my previous job I was in recruitment, but I’ve had some experience in all aspects of it and at this point I’m willing to do anything as long as I get paid.”

Pendragon narrowed his eyes and looked Merlin up and down. Merlin had the distinct feeling that he was being X-rayed, and he stared back.

“What’s your name?” Pendragon asked.

 “Drake Pryce,” said Merlin. The name felt weird on his lips, but it was something he was going to have to get used to.

“If you’re interested, there’s a HR position going in my father’s company. Here –” Arthur pulled a business card out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Merlin. The background was white, with a faint gold dragon taking up the majority of the space and simple black lettering over it. In large letters at the top, it said _Arthur Pendragon_. Below that was his job position, email address, and phone number. “Email me and I’ll send you the job advertisement. Ignore what it says about sending your CV and cover letter to Bayard, he couldn’t spot someone who’d be good at a job if they were already doing it. Send them to me and I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“Thank you, erm –” Merlin glanced down at the business card, as if he didn’t already know Pendragon’s name. “Mr Pendragon.”

“Call me Arthur, and it’s no problem. You seem like a decent guy who’s down on his luck, even if you can’t finish a crossword to save your life.” Arthur stood up. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to get back to the office, it was nice meeting you, Drake.”

“You too,” Merlin said, extending his arm to shake Arthur’s hand. “I’ll be in touch.”

Arthur packed up his things, said a final goodbye, and left. Merlin stayed where he was, fiddling with the corner of Arthur’s business card in his hand, waiting a few minutes to make sure Arthur was far enough away from the café. Then, Merlin downed what was left of his cold tea and took both his and Arthur’s mugs back to the bar. He exited _The Coffee House_ , leaving the newspaper on the little table in the window.

ooOOoo

Less than twenty-four hours after Merlin emailed the fake CV and cover letter to Arthur, he got a reply asking for an interview. Suddenly he had no time to wrap up the loose ends at the police station amid the many telephone interviews, face to face interviews, and trips to the _Pendragon Pharmaceuticals_ office so he could complete security checks before he started work the next week.

On his first day, Merlin introduced himself to the receptionist on the ground floor as he had been instructed, and he was directed up to the fourth floor where he was met by a terrifying looking woman in her late thirties.

He had seen photographs of Morgana LeFay before, of course, and had met her briefly at one of the interviews the previous week, but neither the photos nor sitting at the opposite side of an interview table did justice to her sharp features and steely glare that intimidated everyone in her presence. Merlin was used to being around people who gave off a sense of untouchable superiority and he stared back into her green eyes that were heavily outlined in eyeliner. Her hair was black and slicked back into a ponytail that reached past her shoulder blades, and her lips were painted a vivid red that contrasted with her pale skin. Morgana introduced herself as head of the HR department, and immediately turned around to walk down the corridor. She called for Merlin to follow, her high heels _click-clacking_ on the wooden floor.

Merlin was led on a whirlwind tour of the offices that took a surprisingly long time considering that the building was full of corridors that had signs above the doors stating _Strictly Personnel Only_. Morgana would briefly explain which department was contained in each corridor and then move onto the next, not giving Merlin any time to let the information sink in. They didn’t go up to the top floors; Morgana stopped in the stairwell, explaining that only the heads of departments had offices up there and that if Merlin wanted to speak with her then he would be better off emailing her secretary to make an appointment because she was incredibly busy.

Merlin tried to match up what he was seeing of Morgana with what her profile had told him about her. She was bossy with a take-no-prisoners attitude, but that was necessary to run such a well organised department. There was no sense of underlying friendliness that Merlin had been told she had, and from what he had seen of her, he would have guessed that the people who worked under her did worked their hardest because of fear, rather than respect.

They finished the tour with the HR department. Morgana took him into the offices along the second floor corridor, each one containing four to six people, and introduced him to everyone, telling him what each office did. Finally, she led him into an office that had five desks, four of which were occupied and the other was bare.

Morgana left him with a curt “Here’s your office,” and shut the door behind her.

Four heads turned around to stare at Merlin.

“Hi,” Merlin said, waving and setting down his briefcase on the empty desk next to the door. “I’m Drake.”

A woman with dark skin, curly brown hair and a kind face spoke first.

“I’m Gwen, it’s good to meet you.” She got up to shake Merlin’s hand.

One by one the others introduced themselves. Tristan, a middle aged man with blonde straw-like hair, was sat at a desk at the back of the room, next to a woman who he introduced as his wife, Isolde. She was blonde too, and had her hair tied back in a plait. At the desk next to Merlin’s was a young woman named Sefa, who smiled at him before turning back to her computer and hiding behind a curtain of brown hair.

Merlin sat down at his desk and logged onto the computer with the username and password that had been emailed to him. While he waited for it to log in, he opened his briefcase and pulled out the file of induction material he had been given. It contained information on how to use the online payroll system, and Merlin was still reading through it when there was a knock on the door.

The door opened with a squeak before anyone could shout for the visitor to come in. Arthur Pendragon walked in, and out of the corner of his eye, Merlin saw the others turn back to their computers, where just moments before they had been about to reach for a cup of coffee, or were talking to their neighbour. Arthur looked around the room – carefully, as if he was checking for anything out of place - before his gaze settled on Merlin. Merlin put down the papers he was holding.

“Drake, I heard you were starting today and thought I’d drop by to say hello and congratulate you on getting the job.”

“Thank you, sir, I –” Merlin started, but Arthur cut him off with a wave of his hand.

“No need to call me sir, Arthur will do fine. I was wondering whether you wanted to go out for coffee on your lunch break as a way of congratulating you.”

“Oh – yes, sure.”

“Excellent,” Arthur said, smiling. “Just come to my office when you’re going to lunch.”

“Uh okay, where is that?”

“Didn’t Morgana give you the tour?”

“Yes, but she didn’t take me up to the head of department offices.”

Arthur’s smile waned and he frowned.

“She should have taken you up there, I’ll talk to her. I’m on the sixth floor, take a right out of the stairs and my receptionist is on the left. Tell George I’m expecting you and he’ll let you through.”

“Great.”

Arthur smiled again and left, the door squeaking again as he closed it.

Merlin went to pick up the papers he had been reading before Arthur interrupted. He’d been reading for no more than thirty seconds when he realised that the chatter in the office hadn’t started again when Arthur had left. He looked around to find everyone staring at him, except Sefa who kept her eyes focussed on the computer screen.

“What?” Merlin asked, wondering what he’d done wrong.

“We didn’t know you knew Arthur,” Isolde said.

“I don’t, I met him at the coffee shop last week. We got talking and he told me about the job opening.” They were still staring at him. “What? It’s not that weird that he wants to take me out because I’m the new guy, lots of places do that.”

“This place doesn’t,” said Isolde. “No one’s ever offered to take someone to lunch on their first day, least of all Arthur.” She paused. “You should be careful.”

Merlin shrugged. “What’s there to be careful about?”

The others shared a glance, even Sefa, who turned away from her computer with a worried expression. After a moment of awkward silence, Gwen spoke,

“They always try to hush it up, but… Arthur’s been known to take advantage of some of the people here. He flirts with them for a month or so and then we never see them again.”

“They got fired?”

“Sure, most of the time,” Isolde said. “Two of them have been murdered.”

“What?” Merlin tried to hide the extent of his surprise; no one had mentioned that when he had been warned about Arthur’s sexual advances, and the police were usually thorough when briefing their undercover agents.

“Yeah, it was recently too, part of the S.C.F. murders or whatever it is they’re calling them.”

“Who were they?” asked Merlin. He tried not to sound too curious, but he didn’t understand why no one had told him this information about two of the victims, or maybe they had and he’d forgotten it amongst all the other facts about the victims. Despite that, he should have been reminded of it when he got involved in the undercover role.

“Sophia Danann and Edwin Hayes.”

Merlin nodded, recognising the names. Hayes had been the victim before Helen Mora, and Danann had been killed several months earlier. Merlin wondered how long before they had been murdered they had dated Arthur; it could be a coincidence that they had both worked for _Pendragon Pharmaceuticals_. Merlin didn’t believe in coincidences, though. There was usually something behind the coincidence that made it more than a stroke of fate.

“I’ll be careful,” Merlin said. He smiled, trying to instil confidence in the others. They didn’t look impressed, and gave him one last side-long look before returning to their work one by one.

Merlin picked up the instructions again and started to work his way through them. The only HR training he’d had had been in the previous week, which had been a crash course in the procedures and policies and computer software he was supposed to be familiar with. Apart from that, Merlin knew nothing, and it definitely didn’t help that the instructions were using buzzwords and other jargon that didn’t look like they should be English.

Fortunately there were pictures so at least he knew which buttons he was supposed to be pressing.

It took Merlin the best part of an hour to read through the instructions, ten minutes to have a look through the system to try to get an idea of how it worked, and then another half hour trying to input new salary data into it. Merlin couldn’t help but think that the whole thing would be made much easier with magic – a wave of his hand and paper files could be alphabetised - or ordered by any other data type - pens could be charmed to write for him, and matching how many hours staff worked to how much they should be paid could be done with a click of his fingers. Using technology that could go drastically wrong by something as simple as pressing the wrong button wasn’t good practice, not when there was a better, less time consuming method, even if not all of the population could do it.

However, sorcerers who were open about their powers were becoming more and more rare, especially now that they were being targeted by a terrorist group determined to strip them of those powers, or kill them in the attempt. Merlin couldn’t remember a time when sorcerers had been free to practise magic in the open; he had been a toddler when the first riots had taken place, and since then it had been deemed safest for sorcerers to hide their powers. Merlin had grown up with his mum telling him to not use his magic in public, and desperately covering for him when his magic slipped.

It was only later that he understood why: Marcus Tauren had been a sorcerer who had gone on a killing spree, murdering no less than twenty people. After, there had been protests against sorcerers, claiming that they had too much power, magic corrupted them, and that magic should be outlawed. Magic hadn’t been outlawed, but the protests had quickly turned to riots and there had been deaths on both sides. Once it was all over, sorcerers had silently decided to hide their powers. Less so in the smaller towns and villages in the countryside where the riots had never reached and everyone knew one another, but the fear in the cities was strong, and it led to several laws banning the manufacture of magic-imbued objects, using spells on other people except in life-threatening circumstances, and the use of magic in jobs that didn’t specify its use. All in the name of making the majority of citizens feel as safe as possible, of course. Now, magic was only used sparingly in the emergency services, and by children who hadn’t learnt to control it. 

Merlin struggled through using the payroll system. When he finally thought he understood what he was doing, Merlin glanced at the time in the corner of the computer screen and nearly swore. It was half past one – Arthur was probably wondering where he was.

Everyone else had already left the office to go for lunch, which Merlin was grateful for. He didn’t think he could handle them all watching him as he left, although they were probably talking about him in the kitchen right now. Their concern for him was endearing, really, considering that they didn’t know him and were looking out for him nonetheless, but Merlin didn’t need them trying to persuade him not to get to know Arthur when that was what he was there for.

Merlin quickly glanced around the office, making sure that it really was empty. He knew he was being paranoid, what with there being nowhere to hide, but he didn’t want his cover compromised on his first day. With a muttered word under his breath, the papers in front of Merlin stacked themselves into neat piles. He locked the computer, checked to make sure his wallet was in his trousers pocket, and exited the office.

He found his way to the stairwell and climbed up four flights of stairs. The corridor here had a plush red carpet and white painted walls that displayed framed certificates for awards that the company and employees had won. Every ten metres or so, the walls were replaced by glass panels, through which were waiting areas and a desk where receptionists were sat, typing away at their computers.

Merlin followed Arthur’s directions, turning right as he entered the corridor and entering the first waiting area on his left. As he walked in, the receptionist looked up at him.

“Hello,” said the receptionist – George. He looked Merlin up and down haughtily and seemed to find him lacking if the tightening of his lips was anything to go by. “Can I help you?”

“Hi, Arthur’s expecting me.”

“Someone is seeing him right now, please take a seat.”

George went back to his computer. Merlin sat down on a wooden chair against the far wall where the door to Arthur’s office was. The chair was hard and felt as if it had been designed to be as uncomfortable as possible; clearly _Pendragon Pharmaceuticals_ and the police station bought their furniture from the same supplier. More certificates lined the three walls in the waiting room, but they were interspersed with photographs of city skylines. The room was silent apart from George tapping at his keyboard and the occasional sound of a door closing further down the corridor.

Merlin had only been waiting a few minutes when he started to hear raised voices from Arthur’s office.

“… They’re a problem we need to get rid of, we owe it to father –”

“I don’t owe father anything.”

“You do and don’t deny it. You wouldn’t be working here if it wasn’t for him. I don’t know why you won’t help, your mother –”

“I’m not having this conversation with you now, Morgana. Get out.”

“We will have this conversation.”

“I told you to leave.”

There was the sound of approaching footsteps, and the office door opened. Arthur was holding it open, Morgana was standing a few steps back, glaring at him. Arthur stared back at her, unmoving. Neither of them said a word, and it was obvious that this was something that happened regularly, and that neither had ever won.

Eventually, Morgana walked out of the office. She spotted Merlin, her eyes narrowing, and threw a dark look over her shoulder at Arthur. Without saying anything, she stormed out.

“I’m sorry about that,” Arthur said, breaking the silence. His stony expression softened. “Shall we go?”

Merlin stood up and followed Arthur out of the waiting area. It wasn’t until they’d left the office building and were walking down the crowded street that Arthur spoke again.

“I thought we could go to _The Coffee House_ , is that okay?”

“Of course,” Merlin said, and he followed Arthur down the street.

While they walked, Merlin reflected on the conversation he had overheard between Arthur and Morgana.

Merlin was working at _Pendragon_ to keep an eye on Morgana as well as Uther. She was an unknown quantity who could be playing a part, or could be completely innocent. What Merlin had heard was hard to make sense of without context, but it was pretty obvious that Arthur wanted no part in it. If Morgana and Uther were working with the S.C.F. and Arthur wanted nothing to do with it despite their best attempts to persuade him, then it would explain why he had such a troublesome relationship with the two of them.

They could have been talking about anything, though. There was no point in making wild guesses, for all Merlin knew there was something serious happening within the company that needed their attention.

At _The Coffee House_ , Arthur insisted on paying for Merlin’s food and drink. Merlin didn’t put up as much of a fuss about it as he could have – he wanted to see where Arthur was going with this, and whether the others in the office had been right.

The little café was at the end of its lunchtime rush, and Merlin and Arthur managed to find a table towards the back of the room with two big comfy chairs.

“How are you finding work so far?” Arthur asked as Merlin set his sandwich and tea on the table and sat down.

“It’s been good, the payroll system is different to the ones I’ve worked with before but I read through the instructions and I’ll get the hang of it soon.”

“I’m sure you’ll get used to it quickly, probably have it mastered by five o’clock.” Arthur grinned at Merlin. The grin faded slightly and he dug a hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out his phone. Arthur glanced at the screen and placed it on the table. “How are the others in your office?”

Merlin took a bite of his sandwich. Across the table from him, Arthur did the same. “They’re fine, I’ve not really had the time to get to know them.”

“Too busy settling in?”

“Yes, and no one was being particularly talkative earlier.”

“You’re not being talkative now. You didn’t speak on the way here, I thought we’d be eating in silence,” said Arthur, his tone light and the smile returned to his face.

“Just got other things on my mind,” Merlin said.

Arthur leaned forward in his chair, tilting his head to the side. “Like what?”

“Nothing important.”

Merlin stared at Arthur, his face impassive and refusing to play along with Arthur. They didn’t say anything for a moment, and the silence was interrupted by Arthur’s phone vibrating.

“Someone really wants to get in touch with you.” Merlin nodded towards the phone.

“It’s nothing,” said Arthur, not even glancing at it. “Have you just moved into the area?”

“Uh-huh,” Merlin said around a mouthful of mozzarella and tomato. He remembered the script that he had memorised in case people started asking about his background, and swallowed. “After I lost my job I thought I’d be better off trying to find one in the city. I don’t live too far out, this side of Fort Stowell.”

“I know that area, it’s nice there.”

“Yeah? I’ve not spent much time there yet, I found the corner shop and that’s about it.”

“I could show you around, if you like?”

ooOOoo

Somehow, Merlin managed to avoid Arthur’s offer of showing him around his neighbourhood for the next three weeks. Claims of “it’s too dark after work” and “my mum’s coming to visit that weekend” combined with Arthur having to go on a weekend business conferences and training courses, and meetings abroad, meant that they hadn’t got round to it. Merlin hoped that Arthur had forgotten about it by the time Monday morning rolled around again because he was running out of excuses.

It had been a busy three weeks keeping on top of the work he had to do, as well as keeping an eye out for Morgana and Uther, and trying to get into the accounts office to have a look for any suspicious money transfers. There had been no sign of Uther, and Merlin had done his best at getting into his online calendar, but that hadn’t yielded anything tangible apart from the fact that Uther had a lot of meetings. Merlin had had a thorough look through the company’s intranet to see what he could find on _Pendragon Pharmaceuticals’_ accounts but it was locked behind another layer of security that Merlin couldn’t get through.

However, he had made progress on Morgana. Merlin’s suspicions that Morgana was involved in the S.C.F. murders grew by the day, and keeping tabs on her was made easier by the fact that Arthur was still taking Merlin out to coffee most days. More often than not, Morgana would be in Arthur’s office when Merlin got there, though unfortunately for him, they kept their voices down and Merlin couldn’t hear what they were talking about. As she left, Morgana would glare at Merlin like she had done that first day, before walking back to her own office.

Getting access to her calendar had been relatively easy, and she made a habit of coming into his office and talking to the others. Once or twice, she had announced that she had to leave for a meeting, and when Merlin came to check it on her calendar later there was no record of her having had a meeting. To double check that Morgana wasn’t just doing that to get out of the conversation, the third time she had claimed a meeting that Merlin knew didn’t exist he had rang her receptionist and asked if she was free for a quick word. The receptionist had told him that Morgana was at an out of office meeting and hung up on him.

Merlin had sent his last weekly report to his superior at the police, and suggested sending someone to keep a closer eye on Morgana.

Now, Merlin was treading the familiar path up to Arthur’s office. He had received an email that morning that simply said _Lunch?_ to which Merlin had replied with a rough time that he’d be able to get up to Arthur’s office. He was already five minutes late, but Merlin didn’t think Arthur would mind. The way Arthur was acting, he probably wouldn’t mind if Merlin was an hour late, or said he was coming and then didn’t, as long as he turned up the next day and apologised.

During all of their trips out to _The Coffee House_ for lunch, Arthur had flirted relentlessly and unashamedly, seemingly only not giving up all pretence and kissing Merlin because Merlin had showed no interest in him. Not that Arthur wasn’t attractive – if he was being honest with himself, Merlin would admit that he had a crush on Arthur. The messy blonde hair, strong jawline, and smile that made Merlin think that he was staring at the sun ticked all of Merlin’s boxes. It didn’t help that Arthur looked damn good in a suit, too. Even the constant flirtations and knowing that Arthur only did hook ups didn’t put Merlin off as much as he knew it should; if he had met Arthur outside of his job, Merlin wouldn’t have minded a quick blow job in a club’s toilets and then saying goodbye forever.

That wasn’t all, however. In between the flirting, Merlin got the chance to see a side of Arthur that he had never expected from him. Arthur was kind, never saying a bad word about anyone, and always believing the best of people. He had a very strong sense of right and wrong, but would never judge a person for making a hard decision that didn’t turn out well. Merlin found himself being drawn to Arthur, and he wasn’t entirely sure when he had let that happen.

But this was his job, and Merlin had been warned not to let himself get involved with Arthur, or to let him think that he had any chance with Merlin. So he was forced to distance himself, to avoid confiding in Arthur, and to always change the topic of conversation quickly when things started to get too personal.

When Merlin reached Arthur’s office, he wasn’t surprised that George told him that Arthur had a visitor, and to take a seat. Merlin sat in the familiar chair next to Arthur’s office door, but he barely had time to try to make himself comfortable when the office door opened.

A man in his early sixties walked out. He was wearing a black pinstripe suit with a white shirt and blood red tie. His hair was greying, and there was a scar across one eye. He swept the room with his gaze with what looked like practiced habit. He paused when he saw Merlin, his eyes narrowing.

“Who are you?” Uther Pendragon said.

Merlin opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Arthur walked into view and answered for him.

“Drake Pryce, father. He started three weeks ago in HR.” There was a tension in Arthur’s voice that suggested that whatever conversation he had been having with his father hadn’t been a pleasant one. Uther’s eyes didn’t leave Merlin’s face for a long time. When his attention eventually returned to Arthur, Merlin let out a deep breath.

“So what is he doing here? Morgana is head of HR.”

“It’s my lunch break, we’re going to get something to eat.”

“Have you started taking all our employees out for lunch?”

“No, father, I –”

“I don’t want to hear it. Think about what we’ve discussed today,” he said, and took a long, measuring look at Arthur before briskly walking out of the waiting area.

Merlin struggled to hide his smirk as he watched Arthur glare at his father’s retreating back. When Uther left Arthur’s sight, Arthur turned to Merlin, his expression softening.

“Shall we go?” He asked. Merlin stood up and followed Arthur out of the door.

They made polite small talk on the walk down to the coffee shop. Arthur asked about Merlin’s weekend, and Merlin asked him how the training course in Paris had gone. Arthur’s answer was unusually short; he normally told Merlin everything, going into excruciating detail over how boring and ridiculous the whole thing had been in an attempt to make Merlin laugh. Admittedly, it usually worked, and Merlin would calm down from his laughing fit to see Arthur beaming at him.

Merlin was willing to bet that it had been Uther’s visit that had brought Arthur’s mood down. Although whether it was something they’d discussed in his office or the exchange between them that had happened in front of Merlin, was something Merlin didn’t know, and he wanted to. This was the first time he’d come into contact with Uther, and the first time he’d have an excuse to discuss him with Arthur.

Merlin let Arthur walk in silence. He kept taking his phone out of his pocket, grimacing at the screen and putting it back without typing anything. This happened four or five times in the ten minute walk to _The Coffee Shop_ and Arthur grew more and more frustrated each time.

It happened twice more while they were in the queue to order their drinks, and then again as they sat down at a table.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Arthur muttered as he read the text.

“Your father?” asked Merlin. Someone had left their newspaper on the table, and he pushed it out of the way of his plate. The front page was half taken up by the latest celebrity scandal, and the other half was an article on the S.C.F. murders. There hadn’t been any new deaths in the last three weeks, so it was probably full of rehashed information, made to look new by putting it in a new light.

Arthur typed something into his phone, then placed it onto the table. “Surprisingly not.”

“He didn’t seem that happy, earlier. What did he want?”

Arthur frowned down at his sandwich as he took a bite. Merlin watched him chew slowly and swallow before he answered, “Business stuff. It doesn’t matter.”

“Top secret, is it?”

“Something like that.” Arthur laughed, but quickly sobered. “He wants me to – I’m sorry, I can’t talk about it, and there’s no way of talking about it in generalities.”

“It’s fine, stuff like that happens.”

 _Does Uther want you to start helping the S.C.F.? Are you supposed to start giving them money too? Or does your father need your help in a different way?_ Merlin wanted to ask all those questions and more, but he couldn’t. Not while he still didn’t know Arthur that well, and especially not in such a public place. He settled for gritting his teeth when Arthur’s phone vibrated again, the call screen flashing up this time.

“You should probably answer that,” Merlin said.

“Sorry about this.” Arthur picked up the phone. “Hello.”

Merlin took a sip of his tea and picked up the newspaper that had been left on the table. He flicked through, only pretending to read it, preferring to listen to Arthur’s half of the conversation.

“Yes – I know, Viv, but –”

“You need to stop texting me every two minutes, I’m busy –”

“Look, I know what I said, and I meant it, please just –”

“I’ll call tonight, okay? I promise. Bye.”

Arthur let out a sigh of relief. Over the top of the paper, Merlin saw Arthur look at him expectantly. He rolled his eyes, the corners of his lips were turned upwards as if he was about to smile, and he opened his mouth about to talk but Merlin cut him off.

“Who was that?” he asked.

Arthur froze for a split second. Anyone else might not have noticed it, but Merlin had been trained to read people, and had grown used to Arthur’s mannerisms in the past few weeks.

“Just a friend.”

“Didn’t sound like they were a very good friend.” Merlin was still staring at the newspaper, not taking in a word of what was written about the conflict in Escetir.

“I only met them last week. I – err –”

Now Merlin looked up, raising his eyebrows at Arthur. Merlin’s insides had turned to jelly for some unfathomable reason, and Merlin ignored the uncomfortable sensation. Arthur wasn’t looking at Merlin, but had turned to look out of the window, watching people rush past.

“Was it a one night stand?” asked Merlin. Arthur’s face turned red. Slowly, he nodded.

“It’s really none of my business,” Merlin started. Arthur looked up at him, his lips set in a stubborn line, his eyebrows raised, as if he knew what Merlin was going to say and letting him say it anyway. A part of Merlin knew that what he was about to say was a bad idea, and it could ruin his chances of getting close enough to Arthur to get information on Uther, but he couldn’t let Arthur’s flirtations with him continue. “But, really? You spend the majority of your lunches sitting flirting with me and then hook up with random people every night? Were you hoping I wouldn’t find out? Because that was kind of stupid, anyone at work could have found out, and office gossip travels fast.”

“Drake, I –” Arthur cut himself off, shaking his head and looking down at the table.

“I’ve been accepting your offers to lunch to be polite, and because you got me the job, but I can’t do this.” Merlin gestured between himself and Arthur. “Nothing’s going to happen, and it’s probably a good thing because your father and Morgana seem to hate me.”

Arthur’s head snapped up. “Morgana hates you?”

“She glares at me every time she comes into my office. I’m pretty sure she’s hated me from the moment she saw me.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“That’s really not what we’re talking about right now.”

“I know, I am sorry. It’s just been the once, it was only last week, and I – why do you care if you say nothing’s going to happen anyway? It’s just me making a fool of myself.”

Merlin hesitated. “I don’t like feeling second-rate. I won’t put out so you go find the next person who will. Are you still only here in the hopes you’ll get to take me home after work one day?”

“No, I swear -”

“I should be going back to the office.”

Merlin pushed his chair away and stood up, leaving his untouched tea and half eaten sandwich.

“Drake, don’t!”

“I’ll see you at work,” Merlin said. He tried to still sound friendly, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded. Merlin didn’t turn around as he left, and he deliberately took the long route back to the office so he wouldn’t have to pass the window Arthur was sat beside.

When Merlin walked into his office, the room went silent. Merlin knew what they were all thinking: they’d all been returning from their own lunch breaks when Merlin had left and they had seen him go. He’d been gone barely half an hour, compared to his usual hour and a bit that he only got away with it because he stayed after everyone else left to make up for the lost time.

(No one needed to know that he also used the extra time to go into the finance office and check to see if there was anything suspicious in the financial records. There hadn’t been anything yet, but Merlin was slowly looking back through the records in the hopes that there might be something that would help his search. )

The silence that had descended onto the office broke after a second, chatter filling the small room once again. Merlin settled himself down at his desk, grateful that he’d avoided any awkward questions about why he was back earlier than usual. Gwen and the others were perfectly nice and he got on with them, but they were nosy and over the last three weeks they’d asked him every possible question about himself that they could have. Merlin had deflected most of them, but he’d ended up giving them more information about himself than he’d anticipated.

Merlin’s relief over not being questioned this time was short-lived. Not five minutes after he’d sat down, Gwen asked whether anyone wanted tea or coffee, and as she passed Merlin’s desk on her way out, she stopped.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything? You were back earlier than usual from lunch today.”

“I’m sure,” Merlin said, smiling at her. There was no way he was going to tell her the truth about what had happened at lunch and prove that their warnings back on his first day had been right. “Yeah, Arthur had a meeting so was in a bit of a rush.”

Gwen nodded and smiled, but when she left the office she gave him a backwards glance, her mouth downturned in concern, as if she knew he was lying.

Merlin went back to his work, inputting overtime data. Absently, he noted Gwen returning to the office carrying a tray of mugs. She put a mug on Merlin’s desk without a word.

He liked Gwen, truly. She was kind, and had a way of knowing exactly what to say to people depending on their mood. When Tristan went off on one of his rants that even Isolde couldn’t sit through, Gwen would listen and calm him down, or when Sefa was having trouble with her dad, she always sat down to comfort her, and now, apparently she knew when Merlin needed cheering up but didn’t want to talk about it. It was a shame that Merlin was undercover, because he thought they could have been good friends otherwise.

Inputting data into spreadsheets was tedious work, but right now it was what Merlin needed. His brain wasn’t concentrating on anything well and all he needed to do was copy data from one document to another. He reached a sort of rhythm that required the minimum amount of thinking; scroll down, click the box, press CTRL + C, switch windows, press CTRL + V, switch back, and start again.

Merlin’s rhythm was broken by his phone vibrating in his pocket. A quick look at the caller ID told him that it wasn’t a conversation he was going to want to have in the office, but he also knew that if he didn’t pick up before the third ring, the person on the other end would hang up and he’d get a lecture when he rang back.

He answered the phone.

“Emrys, are you free to talk?”

“Give me a minute.” Merlin stood up. Sefa watched him leave the room and he gave her a faint smile in reassurance. Merlin walked a few metres down the corridor and leaned against the wall. “What’s happened?”

“Another body’s been found,” said Chief Inspector Kilgharrah without preamble. “We’re going to need you to come in.”

“I can’t, you know I’m working.”

“Tell them it’s a family emergency or something, I don’t care. I want you here in the next hour.”

Merlin swore as Kilgharrah hung up. He stared down at the black screen of his phone and took a deep breath, taking his time to get in the right state of mind. Then, he hurried back to his office.

“Drake? Is everything okay?” Gwen asked when Merlin rushed into the office, banging the door open and hurriedly packing some of his papers into his briefcase.

“Uh-huh,” Merlin said, not paying attention.

“Calm down, what’s happened?” That was Isolde.

“My uncle’s had a fall, I need to go to the hospital.” Merlin leaned over his desk, bringing up his emails on the computer and typing out a quick message to Morgana telling her that he had to leave early. He tried to make his voice shaky, as if this really was a thing that he was worried about. It must have worked too well, because when Gwen spoke again she sounded concerned.

“You don’t sound okay, do you need a ride there?”

“No, I’ll be fine.” When no one responded, Merlin added, “Seriously.”

He saved what he had been working on and shut down the computer. He shoved a few piles of papers into his desk drawer, knocking things onto the floor as he did so. He ignored them. Grabbing his briefcase and coat, Merlin said a quick goodbye and walked out before anyone could insist on taking him to the hospital.

It was a long drive across town to the police station. He must have hit the school run because every road he turned onto was blocked, and when he thought he’d finally left the worst of it behind him, he’d turn a corner and find that the road had a school on it and there were crowds of children and parents crossing the road. Merlin kept glancing at the clock on his dashboard, wondering whether it was worth calling ahead to tell Kilgharrah that he physically couldn’t make it in the hour, when he reached the street the police station was on and managed to find a space in the car park with ten minutes to spare.

Merlin muttered the spell to drop the illusion hiding his identity and stepped out of the car. He walked into the station searching his pockets for his police ID and clipping it onto his shirt when he found it.

Hurrying through the familiar corridors, Merlin passed his colleagues. They tried to stop and chat with him, but he gave them a quick shake of his head and carried on walking. Leon and Mithian took the hint and went into Leon’s office, but Gwaine was a different matter. When he saw Merlin, he stopped the conversation he was having and grabbed Merlin on his way past, enveloping him into a hug.

“Ouch – hi Gwaine.”

“Merls! You’re back.” Gwaine squeezed Merlin harder.

“It’s just a flying visit, Kilgharrah wanted to see me.”

“Oh, shit.” Merlin almost fell over as Gwaine suddenly released him. “Well get going, but you’re coming to the pub tonight, right?”

“If I survive,” Merlin said with a wry smile, and rushed off down the hallway.

Kilgharrah’s office was on the third floor at the back of the building. It took Merlin another five minutes to get there, greeting people on his way and agreeing to meet them for a catch up in the pub later. Kilgharrah’s old oak office door had a little gold plaque on it with his name, contrasting with the simplistic black and white linoleum and painted grey walls. Merlin knocked and opened the door to see Kilgarrah sitting at his desk, a clock facing the door displaying the time exactly one hour since Merlin had put the phone down.

“Good timing,” Kilgharrah said.

“Thank you, sir.” Merlin strode into the room, taking a seat in the wooden chair at Kilgharrah’s desk. Kilgharrah surveyed him over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses; even after meeting Uther Pendragon, Kilgharrah was the only person who could fix Merlin to the spot with his gaze. Merlin held his breath, waiting for Kilgharrah to finish his assessment of him, and stared back, leaning back in his chair, pretending to be relaxed about being in his superior’s office. Merlin might have had regular meetings with Kilgharrah in the past and become used to his intimidating presence, but three weeks away from anyone in the same league as him was enough for Merlin to forget just how terrifying Kilgharrah was.

“The victim was Aglain Everhart, a man in his early forties.” Kilgharrah spoke bluntly and without hesitation. “He appears to have no connection to any of the other victims apart from being a sorcerer also. We’ve informed his family and are due to make a press release this evening.”

“Yes, sir,” Merlin said, knowing that there was more that Kilgharrah wanted to say. Kilgharrah reached for a file on his desk and pushed it towards Merlin.

“The details on the murder, of the victim and so forth are in here. I brought you here to tell you that this time we found the body soon enough after death that the drug compounds in the blood hadn’t broken down too much. We had the forensic team undertake some preliminary tests, and, bearing in mind that these are very early results and we’ll have a proper analysis done this week, it would appear that the compounds used in the drugs have the same chemical traces as compounds used at _Pendragon Pharmaceuticals_.”

Kilgharrah paused as if waiting for Merlin’s reaction, but Merlin kept his face expressionless.

“We’ve also gained intelligence that there have been thefts at Pendragon’s laboratory in Gedref.”

This time, Kilgharrah raised his eyebrow expectantly at Merlin. It was news to Merlin, but he refused to let Kilgharrah bring him down.

“Sir, I’ve only been working for the company for three weeks, I haven’t had time to build a large enough intelligence network and gain the trust of every head of department.”

“You seem to be making progress with Pendragon Junior.”

“My aim is to break into the company via Arthur Pendragon and see what information I can get on Pendragon Senior from there. If I’d known that looking into possible chemical thefts was a priority then I would have made more of an effort, sir.”

Silence followed Merlin’s words.

“We need to find solid evidence that Pendragon is behind this in some way, Emrys. This isn’t something to be taken lightly. Aglain was found with a note threatening the lives of every magic user in the country. They stated that they would attack the families of sorcerers if they didn’t give up their magical relatives. ”

Merlin felt his face go cold.

 “I hope I don’t have to warn you to be careful, Emrys?”

“Of course not, sir.” Merlin swallowed. “Will that be all?”

“No.” Kilgharrah pulled open a desk drawer and drew out another file folder. He passed it to Merlin, who opened it to find a photo of a man in his late forties with black slicked back hair and a mouth that was permanently turned down in a frown. “Agravaine du Bois. He’s been identified as a prominent member of the S.C.F. Not much is known about him, we doubt he’s involved with any of the… cruder aspects of their operations. But we’ve identified him, so stay on the lookout. If you see him, I want to know immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re dismissed.”

Merlin stood up, trying not to make the chair squeak on the plastic floor. He failed miserably, and put the folders Kilgharrah had given him under his arm.

His mission had just become that much more urgent. Once Merlin left Kilgharrah’s office, he got his phone out of his pocket to confirm the plans for the pub later. He really needed a drink right now.

ooOOoo

The next morning, Merlin hit the snooze button on his alarm three times before he managed to drag himself out of bed. He got ready for work slowly, the pounding in his head making it difficult to concentrate and his dry mouth made breakfast taste like cardboard. Merlin hoped that he’d get into work early enough to make himself coffee before he ran into anyone and they tried talking to him, because he wasn’t convinced he’d be able to hold polite conversation.

It had been fun catching up with his friends from the station over a couple of pints the previous night, but Merlin was paying for it now. He dimly remembered the time when he’d been able to drink everyone else under the table and still make it into work the next morning feeling as chirpy as ever, and regretted not taking advantage of it when he could.

Now though, Merlin had to focus on the job again. His current approach hadn’t been working, and the information about the chemical thefts was a new lead that Merlin would have been grateful for in a week or two when he would have hit a dead end. Getting that information now was even better, meaning that he wasn’t going to waste more time on something that would prove fruitless.

Merlin spent the drive in the daily traffic jam considering how he could find out more about the thefts. It was going to be difficult; under his job title he’d had very little reason to go into the finance department, but he’d managed to lie his way through it with occasionally bribing people with coffee. Getting into the research department – even if it was only the office that overlooked the research and wasn’t exactly involved with any experiments – was going to be impossible. For starters, Merlin had no reason to be interested in that side of the company, and for another thing, the security was above and beyond what was needed; employees working in development needed special access cards to get into their offices.

It was going to take some thinking about.

When Merlin got to the Pendragon offices, the car park was almost empty, with only a dozen or so cars already there. Merlin locked up and made his way up to his floor. He didn’t pass anyone on the stairs and as he walked down his corridor he couldn’t hear anyone behind any of the office doors. Instead of dropping his briefcase off in his own office, Merlin went straight into the small kitchen to make himself coffee.

He dropped his briefcase on the floor by the door and went about filling the kettle with water and finding the jar of coffee beans. His headache had subsided slightly but he still felt rough, and Merlin counted the seconds until the kettle boiled. Once he had made the coffee to perfection (black – one sugar) Merlin turned around with the mug of coffee in his hands, and almost dropped it.

Arthur was standing in the doorway.

Merlin mustn’t have heard the door open over the sound of the water boiling, and the surprise at seeing Arthur down in the small kitchen this early in the morning made him freeze.

“You’re here early,” Arthur said.

Merlin managed to unfreeze enough to speak. “Yeah, I had to leave early yesterday so I thought I’d come in early for a few days to make up the time.”

 “I know you left early, I came down to talk to you but you’d gone. You also left this.” Arthur put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a black leather credit card holder. “I found it on the floor by your desk, must have fallen out of your pocket.”

“Oh, thanks. I didn’t realise I’d left it.” Merlin held out his hand for it, but Arthur didn’t let go just yet.

“I went round to your house last night to drop it off but you weren’t in.”

“No, I ran into some old friends and we went out.”

“Hence the coffee?” It was a statement, but Arthur said it like a question, raising the tone of his voice on the last syllable. Merlin grimaced, which Arthur took for a yes. Arthur grinned and passed Merlin the card holder.

“You said you came to talk to me yesterday?” asked Merlin, pocketing the card holder.

Arthur shrugged, and glanced down at his feet.

“I wanted to apologise. I shouldn’t have acted the way I have been, and you had every right to storm off yesterday.” Arthur frowned. “I’m sorry, and if it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll stop. But I’d like it if we could still be friends.”

“Thank you. I’d like to still be friends, too.” It was the job, Merlin thought to himself. He only wanted to stay friends with Arthur because it was his job.

That was a lie.

Because why would Merlin want to be friends with Arthur Pendragon? The guy was an asshole, going around seducing anyone and everyone he came across, and his family was definitely involved with the murder of innocent people, even if they didn’t have enough evidence to prove it yet. Arthur definitely wasn’t funny, or sincere, or kind, or even remotely attractive.

“So, lunch?” asked Arthur.

“Maybe not today, I’ve got to catch up with work or Morgana will have me fired.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen.” Arthur leaned against the doorway with his shoulder and blocked Merlin’s exit.

“Careful, Pendragon,” said Merlin, raising his eyebrows at Arthur. Arthur jumped up straight, making way for Merlin pass with his steaming mug, and if Merlin rolled his eyes and smiled on his way back to his office when Arthur couldn’t see, well.  No one could prove it.

True to his word, Arthur’s behaviour at their coffee lunches changed. He stopped the constant smiling and making jokes and general overfriendliness, and their lunches seemed to become more relaxed because of it. Before, Merlin had always been tense, putting up with Arthur’s flirtations because he had to, and it had made their relationship awkward, on Merlin’s side at least. However, after a few days of Arthur’s changed behaviour, Merlin started to become more comfortable around him. He felt that he could talk to Arthur without it sounding like he was returning his affections.

On the other hand, Morgana’s attitude towards Merlin hadn’t changed one bit. She was still storming around the office, glaring at Merlin if he so much as dared to breathe near her. Merlin had no idea whether Arthur ever had talked to her about how she treated him, but if he had she had ignored him – or maybe that had been the catalyst for her worse treatment of him. It was getting bad enough for the others to notice it now, rather than them passing it off as Merlin being new and Morgana busy; she wouldn’t offer him a drink if she was boiling the kettle for everyone else, and if he dared say hello to her as they passed in the corridor, he’d get a grunt and a stern look in reply.

Merlin still had no idea why Morgana seemed to hate him so much; he’d tried to ask Arthur about it once or twice, and he’d mumbled something about it taking a while for Morgana to trust people before changing the subject.

He definitely knew, and just wasn’t telling Merlin.

Unfortunately, as well as Merlin’s friendship with Arthur was now going, his research into the chemical thefts had barely begun. On one of his late evenings working, he’d managed to sneak into the head of research’s office (with a little help from his magic to make him unnoticeable and to fake the CCTV camera images) and copy some promising looking files onto a hard drive. It had taken him a few days to go through the files and find the ones that he was looking for, and then weeks of comparing invoices to stock takes to standard operating procedures to work out that the thefts were definitely occurring from within Pendragon, rather than during transit.

The amounts of a number of chemicals being ordered was significantly more than what was being used in the labs, if Merlin’s maths was right. He’d checked the SOPs and experiment logs again and again to make sure, but there should have been bottles of potassium chloride and various other chemicals in the inventories, but instead there were just one or two. The initial inventories of each of the deliveries had the number of bottles of each chemical that had been ordered, but the monthly stock takes didn’t add up. The only way Merlin could think that this could happen would be if the person in charge of deliveries was involved in the thefts, or they just didn’t pay that much attention to what experiments were going on in the lab. Merlin idly wondered what Uther had threatened, and how much he was paying the person.

Having evidence of the thefts and a potential suspect were all well and good, but Merlin needed to get into the labs when a delivery was being taken to see if he could spot anyone behaving suspiciously, and that was going to be impossible. He’d tried having a look through the CCTV, but there were always too many people involved in the delivery for Merlin to see what everyone was doing. It was far too easy to hide what you were doing behind a crowd of people, or walk away without anyone noticing, and without sound it was difficult for Merlin to differentiate between who was being sent to do something else and who was sneaking off.

So Merlin spent his days doing the work Pendragon was paying him to do, trying to avoid Morgana, spending his lunches with Arthur, and keeping an eye on Uther’s online calendar, just in case something changed and he started using it; he didn’t, but it made Merlin feel like he was helping in some way. The weeks passed, the weather getting colder and wetter with each one, and before Merlin knew it, everyone was talking about the Christmas party.

It was being held at one of the fancier hotels in Camelot, _The Dragon’s Egg_ , on the Friday night before Merlin was due to visit his mum back in Ealdor for the holiday. He’d been thinking about giving it a miss, but then Gwen and the others in his office had almost convinced him to join them, and Arthur hadn’t taken no for an answer when he brought it up.

Merlin didn’t do parties, especially not parties where he barely knew anyone and that were held in posh hotels. Growing up in the tiny seaside town of Ealdor hadn’t prepared Merlin for the niceties of city life. He’d managed to adjust quite well, getting used to formal events with the police, but every now and again he’d end up out of his depth and cling desperately to someone until he found his footing.

Which was why, right now, Merlin could be found sat at a table at the back of the room, as far away from the dance floor as he could get, making awkward small talk with Sefa. Despite sharing an office with her for the past two months, and sitting at the desk next to her, they had never spoken all that much. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Sefa was shy and felt uncomfortable around people she didn’t know, and Merlin was usually too focussed on his work when he was at his desk. They’d joined in group discussions in the office, but actually talking one-on-one wasn’t something they did.

They’d already gone through the generic questions (are you doing anything over Christmas? Any plans for next year? Got any new year resolutions?) and Gwen had tried to drag them both up to the dance floor more than once. Merlin saw Gwen approaching again and raised his eyebrows at her, shaking his head. She pouted, but turned back to the date she had brought with her.

Merlin looked down at his beer. He’d been nursing the same one for the past two hours and figured it was about time he got a new one. He was limiting himself to two beers tonight, mostly because he was driving to Ealdor in the morning and didn’t want to be hungover, but also because he didn’t dare drink anymore while he was undercover. Merlin didn’t need to get wasted and start spilling out all his secrets.

“I’m going to get another beer,” Merlin shouted over the music to Sefa. She nodded and went back to staring at the dance floor.

Merlin walked across the room to the bar on the other side of the room. The DJ was blasting out some terrible music that Merlin was sure hadn’t even made the Top 40, but everyone was dancing to it anyway, either so drunk they didn’t care that the music was terrible, or genuinely enjoying it.

He made it to the bar without too many people spilling their drinks on him, and it was only when he got there did Merlin realise that Uther was standing at one end of the bar, talking to a tall man with his back to Merlin. Merlin thought he saw Uther glance past the man he was talking to and look at Merlin. A moment later, Uther’s attention was purely focussed on the other man.

The bartender was serving someone else – Merlin vaguely recognised them as being from the Accounts department – so he leaned with his back against the bar and looked out at the crowd of dancers. He spotted the group of people from his office, Isolde, Tristan, Gwen, and her date Lance, dancing not far away from him. Gwen didn’t seem to have noticed him yet, and he was hoping that she wouldn’t, because he didn’t think he’d managed to resist her as well as avoid spilling an entire pint.

In the centre of the dance floor was a large group of people, and Merlin wasn’t surprised to see that Arthur was in the middle, his arms in the air, a half-full glass in one hand, and dancing like he’d had far too much to drink. Merlin watched Arthur wave his arms around for a while, making sure to remember exactly how foolish Arthur looked so he could laugh about it later. Before he could look away, Arthur caught Merlin’s eye through the crowd. Downing the drink he was holding, Arthur squeezed through the crowd to join Merlin at the bar.

“Hey,” said Arthur, somewhat breathlessly, sweat glistening on his face. He was wearing snug navy blue trousers, with a matching waistcoat over a white shirt. His tie, which was a paler shade of blue, had been untied and was draped over his shoulders. The top two buttons of his shirt had been undone as well, revealing collarbones that were collecting droplets of sweat, and hinting at light chest hair.

Despite Arthur’s dishevelled state of undress, Merlin felt underdressed standing next to him. He hadn’t even bothered with a tie, wearing just a plum long-sleeved shirt with the collar open, a pair of grey jeans that were the only ones he had that fit properly, and black shoes.

“Hi,” Merlin said.

“Having fun?” Arthur had to lean in and shout into Merlin’s ear for him to hear properly.

“Sure.”

“Don’t lie, I’ve not seen you dancing.”

Merlin laughed and shook his head. “I don’t dance.”

“Sure you do, you’ve just not drank enough.” Arthur took a step back and looked Merlin up and down. “Are you still sober?”

“I have to drive to my mum’s in the morning.” There was a tap at Merlin’s shoulder. He turned around to see the bartender, and Merlin ordered another beer. He turned back to Arthur and found him staring at him with one eyebrow raised.

“You don’t have to drink a lot, just enough to have fun.”

“I am having fun.”

“You’ve been sat at that table at the back of the room since we finished the meal.”

“I don’t need to make a fool of myself to have fun. Not like you, you looked absolutely ridiculous dancing before, you know.” Merlin grinned.

“That’s only because you have no concept of party dancing. I’ll have you know that I was trying out the hottest moves there are.”

Laughing, Merlin said, “You’re ridiculous.”

“Come on, join us.”

“I can’t, I left Sefa on her own.”

“She’ll be fine, Gwen keeps checking on her.”

“I’ll feel bad.”

“You’re too nice for your own good.”

“Yeah, it’s such a terrible curse.”

Arthur didn’t have a response to that. Merlin looked around, wondering why his drink hadn’t come. The bartender was standing at the other end of the bar near where Uther was. It looked like Uther had called her over and distracted her with Merlin’s pint in her hand. She noticed Merlin looking and must have excused herself from Uther because she came to give Merlin his drink.

That was when the man talking to Uther turned around.

He had medium-length black hair that was slicked back with grease and didn’t quite reach his shoulders, and eyes that looked black in the poor lighting but were probably brown. His face was lined, with almost permanent frown lines on his forehead. His mouth was turned down in a scowl as he looked at Merlin.

Agravaine du Bois. Merlin recognised him from the file photo Kilgharrah had shown him.

His mouth suddenly dry, Merlin paid the bartender and picked up his beer, taking a sip. It tasted different to the other one, but not in a bad way. He wondered if the bartender had accidently given him a different drink to what he had ordered. Merlin drank another mouthful.

“Come on, have a dance,” Arthur said, appearing not to notice the man his father was talking to.

“With a full pint?” Merlin said, and then, because he could tell Arthur wasn’t going to stop mithering him, he added, “Maybe later.”

Arthur grinned at him, and practically bounced on his way back to join the crowd of dancers. Merlin went back to the table where Sefa was still sitting on her own. He fumbled in his pocket for his phone, and tried to inconspicuously angle the screen so Sefa couldn’t see it. He scrolled down the contacts, looking for someone who was on duty tonight and would have access to their phone.

Eventually, he reached Mordred’s number. He was a relatively new Detective Constable but he was good at his job, and had always offered to help Merlin when he was looking for volunteers for something.

_A frm scf @ prty w/ U. Wnt eyes on both_

Merlin sent the text, immediately deleted it from his phone, and put his phone away. Mordred knew better than to reply to it, and Merlin had to trust that he would do what he was told.

Merlin took a sip of his beer. Sefa was still watching the crowd, and Merlin watched too, wondering if Sefa was paying attention to anyone in particular. Her gaze would scan across the crowd, flicker downwards to her hands on the table, and then up to the bar, before scanning the dancers again.

“You seem very close to Arthur,” Sefa said, breaking the silence.

Merlin shrugged. “We’re friends, I guess.”

“What happened that time? When you came back from lunch annoyed and left early.”

“Just a misunderstanding.”

There was a pause, and then Sefa spoke

“Gwen worries about you. We all do, but Gwen most of all.”

“Why?” Merlin was surprised, they had only known him for two months after all, and it wasn’t like he was really close friends with them. He was arguably closer to Arthur than Sefa and the others in the office.

“Because that’s what Gwen does.” Sefa smiled. “But we like you, and we don’t want you to leave if Arthur ends up doing something stupid.”

“Like break my heart? You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Are you going to break his?”

Merlin looked over to where he could see Arthur dancing crazily. He danced over to a tall man with short hair, draped an arm over their shoulder and leaned in to say something into their ear.

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“You’d be surprised. You should have seen him after Sophia was murdered. He was torn up for weeks, and kept wandering around all the departments looking completely lost.”

Merlin watched Arthur throw his head back in laughter and pull the tall man into the middle of the circle to dance. Sefa was still talking:

“He has a short attention span, I think. He’ll date someone for a week or two and then ditch them, but during that week he’ll be a hundred percent committed.”

Merlin’s gaze drifted over to the bar where Uther and Agravaine still stood. Uther was watching Arthur with a look of disgust, and apparently wasn’t paying enough attention to Agravaine, because the other man clicked his fingers in Uther’s face to get his attention. Uther’s expression turned stony as he looked at Agravaine. Agravaine said a few words and stood up, with Uther following suit a few seconds later. Together they made their way around the edges of the dance floor towards the door.

Merlin pulled out his phone again, quickly text Mordred to tell him that Uther and Agravaine were leaving, and put it away again.

“Are you okay?” Sefa asked.

“Mmhmm, yeah.”

“You look tense.”

Merlin took a drink of his beer. He was starting to feel light-headed, and he frowned down at his glass. He’d only drank half of this pint and really shouldn’t be feeling drunk yet. Merlin took another sip anyway.

“I’m fine.”

“Not for much longer,” Sefa said, looking back at the dance floor. Gwen was heading towards their table, dragging Lance behind her, and Tristan and Isolde were following them.

“Come on! Neither of you have danced all night,” Gwen shouted when she was within earshot.

“That’s because we’re happier not doing,” replied Merlin.

“Sefa!” Gwen turned on her, and Sefa shrank into her chair. “I’ll get the DJ to play a song for you, what do you want? Queen? Arctic Monkeys? If you don’t tell me then I’ll make him play the Macarena and dedicate it to you.”

“No, no, there’s no need for that,” Sefa said. She stood up. Gwen beamed at her, and slowly turned to Merlin, her smile becoming mischievous.

“How do we get you to dance?”

“I’m not going to tell you that.”

“ _Please_ , Merlin?”

“Why do you care so much?”

“I want you to have fun, it’s your first Christmas party.”

“I was having fun talking to Sefa.”

“But you can do that in the office all the time.”

Merlin hesitated, then looked at Tristan, “How much of a living hell is she going to make work if I refuse?”

“So much. She’ll bribe everyone into not talking to you and will probably follow you on your lunches with Arthur.”

“Okay, I’m coming.”

Merlin stood up, stumbling a bit as he did. He followed the others back to the dance floor, with Sefa giving him an encouraging look, as if to say it wouldn’t be as bad as he was expecting. Merlin grimaced.

The music was just as bad as it had been earlier, but this time there didn’t seem to be any sober people left on the dance floor. Gwen stopped at the edge of the crowd and started dancing, the rest of them joining in, dancing in a small circle. Merlin felt awkward, he’d never been much of a clubbing person, much preferring to go to the pub or - while he’d been at uni - house parties, where no dancing was required.

Slowly, the alcohol he’d drank started to take effect and he relaxed into his dancing. Gwen and Lance had drifted away from the group slightly and were dancing together, as were Tristan and Isolde. Merlin turned to Sefa and they started to dance, both of them laughing at how ridiculous they felt.

Gwen saw them, and shouted across from where she was, “See? Told you you’d enjoy it.”

Merlin grew more and more light-headed the more he danced, and he didn’t realise that the noise in the room had become muted until Gwen and Lance joined back with them, dancing in a circle once again. They tried talking to him, but he couldn’t make out their words and everything sounded like they were underwater. Merlin’s balance had become clumsy, and he was about to excuse himself and go sit down when he felt an arm around his shoulders and a tickle of breath at his ear.

“I thought you were going to dance with me?” Arthur said.

“What happened to the last guy?”

“Cedric? He’d told his wife he’d be home before midnight.”

“Oh.” Merlin didn’t know what else to say. Rather than wait for an answer, Arthur grabbed Merlin’s arm and pulled him away from the others and towards the group of people he’d been dancing with. Merlin barely had time to wave goodbye to Sefa, Gwen, and Lance before he lost sight of them.

Arthur let go of Merlin’s arm and very obviously checked him out, drawing near to him again to speak into Merlin’s ear.

“You look particularly handsome tonight.”

Merlin caught Arthur’s gaze and didn’t let it go. Arthur was looking significantly worse for wear than before: his tie had gone missing altogether, his waistcoat was undone and his shirt had been untucked from his trousers. His fringe was plastered to his forehead with sweat, and Merlin could see beads of it running down his neck.

Merlin had a sudden urge to lick one of the trails of sweat. As soon as he thought it, Merlin pushed it away, not wanting to follow that line of thought. It was the beer making him think that, it definitely wasn’t something he’d seriously consider doing.

“You’re not looking too shabby yourself,” Merlin said instead. It was true, even though Arthur’s clothes were a mess, he was still ridiculously good-looking. It took a moment for Merlin’s brain to catch up with his mouth, and he didn’t know why he’d said that. He wasn’t normally the type of person who’d just go around complimenting other men.

Arthur laughed. He took a step closer to Merlin and threw his arm around Merlin’s shoulders. “You’re just saying that, I know I’m a mess, I don’t even know where my tie is.” Arthur started swaying to the music, making Merlin follow suit.

“It’s sexy, though, the dishuv – dishelled –”

“Dishevelled?”

“Yeah. That. Looks good on you.”

Arthur’s thumb was rubbing circles on Merlin’s shoulder, and it was very distracting. Merlin found himself focussing on that rather than where his feet were going, and even though he and Arthur were doing the bare minimum of dancing, Merlin still managed to stumble several times before the song changed.

“What was in that last drink you had? You can barely stand up,” Arthur said.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about. ‘m fine. You keep dancing out of time and making me fall.”

“Sure, whatever you say. Do you want some water?”

Merlin shook his head, but soon stopped. Moving his head too quickly made the room spin. There was a weird tapping sensation on his back, barely noticeable. He shrugged his shoulder, trying to get rid of it but it didn’t stop, and instead became even more insistent. Merlin turned his head to see if there was something on his back, and came face to face with Gwen.

“Oh, hi.”

“We’re leaving,” Gwen shouted into Merlin’s ear. “Do you want to get a taxi with us?”

“No, no, I’m fine.”

It was difficult for Merlin to focus on Gwen’s face. He blinked a few times and his vision cleared enough for him to see that Gwen wasn’t convinced by him.

“I’ll look after him,” came a voice from Merlin’s other side. It took a moment for Merlin to realise it was Arthur. He tightened his hold around Merlin’s shoulders, and Merlin reflexively leaned into Arthur, grateful for someone steady and solid and warm, and he wound an arm around Arthur’s waist.

That must have satisfied Gwen because she nodded, wished them a merry Christmas, and left. Merlin waved after her.

It was then that Arthur noticed that Merlin was pressed up against him and practically had his face in Arthur’s neck. Merlin felt Arthur’s laugh rather than heard it.

“You’re clingy when you’re drunk.”

“Only to pretty people.”

“Oh, I’m pretty, am I?”

“You know you are,” Merlin mumbled. He closed his eyes. His brain was foggy now, and words came spilling out. “That’s why you go around abusing it, flirting with everyone because you know you can and people won’t say no.”

“Drake…”

“That’s not –” Merlin had been about to say _that’s not my name_ , but stopped himself just in time, remembering that Drake was his name. It was the name Arthur knew him by, but it wasn’t real. Nothing that Merlin was feeling right now felt real, nothing he said sounded like something he’d say, but he did anyway, and Merlin knew he probably should have got a taxi with Gwen and the others, but right now he couldn’t think _why ._ He couldn’t think of a single reason, not even that Arthur was the son of his boss - who appeared to dislike him - and the brother of his head of department – who definitely didn’t like him.

All that mattered was that Merlin could smell Arthur. He stank of sweat and beer, but also of something earthy that reminded Merlin of the forests his mum had taken him to as a child.

“You’re very pretty,” Merlin said, pulling his head back and opening his eyes to get a proper look at Arthur. He was frowning slightly, a crease appearing between his eyebrows, his eyes catching Merlin’s and not letting him break the gaze. Arthur’s lips were parted slightly, as if he was about to speak.

Merlin kissed him.

Arthur’s lips were rough and chapped, and it took him a moment to respond, but then he did and it was bliss. Merlin let himself forget about everything else and concentrate just on the feel of Arthur’s lips on his own, the taste of the beers Arthur had drank, and the wet sound their lips made when they pulled apart for a moment before going back for another kiss.

They pulled apart, and Arthur rested his forehead against Merlin’s. The hand that wasn’t around Merlin’s shoulders had moved to hold his waist tightly.

“This is such a bad idea,” Arthur breathed.

“It’s really not. It’s actually a very good idea.” Merlin moved to steal another kiss, and Arthur let him.

“I thought you didn’t approve of this,” said Arthur when they parted.

“Shut up, and don’t stop kissing me.”

Arthur complied, and it felt as if any inhibitions he might have had had gone, because he ran his tongue along Merlin’s lower lip, making him shudder. Merlin opened his mouth, letting Arthur’s tongue in, and it was the best feeling in the world, having Arthur’s tongue tease at his own, and pulling out, so Merlin could lick into Arthur’s mouth.

They were pressed up against each other, grinding against the other ever so slightly. Merlin’s jeans were growing tighter every second, helped by the feeling of Arthur’s own erection growing.

“Arthur,” Merlin moaned, pulling away for air. His chest was rising and falling heavily as he panted for breath. Arthur was in a similar condition, his lips red, his eyes staring at Merlin’s lips while he licked his own.

“I have a room,” said Arthur. “Here. If you want –”

Merlin silenced him with a kiss, pushing against him, making him walk backwards off the dance floor. Dimly, a part of his brain that wasn’t busy kissing Arthur recognised that the dance floor had emptied somewhat. There were still enough people there that their absence wouldn’t be noticed immediately by the vast majority, but soon people would be questioning why Arthur had left without telling anyone, and their guesses would most likely be correct.

They stumbled out of the hall; Arthur had better balance than Merlin, but only just. Arthur’s room was too far away for Merlin’s liking; Arthur dragged Merlin up two flights of stairs and along a corridor and they weren’t there yet. Every now and then Merlin would drag Arthur back and push him against a wall to kiss him, stroking Arthur’s cock through his trousers and making him groan. After a moment, Arthur would push him off, adjust his trousers and pull Merlin after him once more.

Arthur fumbled with the keys when they reached his room, struggling to get the right one into the lock. Merlin stood behind him and wrapped his arms around Arthur’s waist, pressing kisses onto the back of his neck. Merlin’s hand drifted lower –

“Fuck.” Arthur dropped the key. He leaned over to pick it up, and Merlin couldn’t resist the temptation to rub his cock along the crack of Arthur’s ass as he bent over.

“Fuck,” Arthur repeated, his voice shaky this time. He picked up the keys and straightened up, resting his forearm on the door and fiddling with the keys in his other hand. Merlin didn’t stop grinding against Arthur’s ass until the door eventually opened and they both fell into Arthur’s room, landing on the carpet.

Merlin laughed, loud and breathless, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. He tried to kick the door close, aiming wildly with his feet until his foot connected and there was a _bang_.

Next to him, Arthur muttered something under his breath. Merlin turned his head to ask him to repeat himself, but lost his train of thought when he saw Arthur’s face closer to him than he had expected.

“Are you okay?” Arthur whispered.

Merlin kissed him.

He rolled over so he was on top of Arthur, straddling his hips. Arthur didn’t move, completely submissive to Merlin’s desires. Merlin ran his hand down Arthur’s side, reached between them to stroke his cock a few times before trailing his hand further down to the back of Arthur’s knee so he could hook Arthur’s leg around his hips.

Arthur squirmed beneath him, making his cock rub against Merlin’s, and Merlin broke the kiss. He fumbled with Arthur’s belt, struggling to unfasten it until Arthur’s hands covered his and helped him undo the buckle, and then unbutton his trousers.

Merlin pushed down Arthur’s trousers to his knees, and then his boxers. Arthur’s cock came free, long and hard and red. Merlin stroked it gently, his fingers barely brushing it, and he wrapped his hand around it, pumping it twice before he adjusted his position, shuffling backwards and lowering his head to take Arthur’s cock in his mouth.

Merlin heard Arthur gasp and his hips hitched upwards, forcing more of his cock into Merlin’s mouth. Merlin licked around the head, drawing out more gasps and moans from Arthur. His hand was still stroking the length of Arthur’s cock, slower now. He could feel Arthur growing tenser, and as Merlin ran his tongue over Arthur’s slit, Arthur’s hips bucked upwards.

Merlin pulled off, licking a stripe up Arthur’s cock as he did so, and he was rewarded by a particularly filthy groan that went straight to his own cock. He palmed himself and closed his eyes, counting to ten. He’d only reached five when he felt Arthur’s hand on the back of his neck, pulling him back up to Arthur’s face and kissing him.

“You’re still wearing clothes. You shouldn’t – that’s not – get rid –”

Laughing quietly, Merlin began unbuttoning his cuffs, and then moved onto the others. It took him a long time, he struggled with the small buttons and it didn’t help that the room was spinning around him. At this point, Merlin couldn’t tell whether it was from the alcohol or because of the rush of blood to his cock. Arthur watched him as he fumbled with each button, and Merlin saw his eyes drop lower with each button that came undone, revealing more of Merlin’s chest.

Finally, Merlin threw his shirt behind him and his gaze returned to Arthur, but Arthur was still staring at Merlin’s chest. He licked his lips.

“That’s a surprise.”

Arthur was staring at Merlin’s left nipple, where he had a steel bar through it.

“Do you like it?” asked Merlin.

“Yeah.” Arthur paused. “Can I –?”

“Sure,” Merlin breathed.

Arthur’s hands started at Merlin’s hips and slowly made their way up his sides. Merlin’s skin burned where they had been and he closed his eyes, the anticipation too much for him and wanting Arthur to move faster. But he didn’t, and Merlin could feel himself shaking, his patience running out. His lips were parted, his breathing was shallow and fast; if Arthur didn’t hurry up then Merlin was going to – he would… but he couldn’t think of anything, his brain had lost all higher functions and all that mattered was the sensation of Arthur’s hands on him, and his cock straining against his jeans.

It was a relief when Merlin felt Arthur’s finger trace a circle around his nipple and then his thumb brushing over it gently. And again. Merlin bit down on his lip, holding in his moans of pleasure. The next time there was more pressure as Arthur’s thumb rubbed against his nipple, and Merlin couldn’t hold himself back any longer, letting out a high pitched whine. Arthur’s movements were surer then, and he caught Merlin’s nipple with his thumb and forefinger, twisting the metal bar. Merlin groaned, his cock twitching.

In a movement that was too quick for Merlin to know how it happened, Arthur flipped them over. His fingers disappeared from Merlin’s nipple, and Merlin’s eyes flew open just in time to see Arthur’s head move down so his mouth could replace his fingers. Arthur sucked at a spot just below his nipple, his hand moving to Merlin’s unpierced nipple, twisting and rubbing it enough to make Merlin lose control over his mouth.

“God, yes, don’t stop. Fuck. Arthur. Fuck.”

Merlin raised his hips from the floor, rubbing his still trapped cock against Arthur’s. Arthur’s tongue moved to Merlin’s nipple, licking it, taking it into his mouth and sucking, twisting the bar around in his mouth, and there were tears in Merlin’s eyes from the intensity of Arthur pleasuring him. A near constant string of profanities spilled from Merlin, encouraging Arthur. He thought he could cum just from Arthur’s tongue on him.

Until Arthur pulled away. Merlin whined, immediately missing the feel of Arthur.

“Bed,” Arthur said, standing up and pulling Merlin with him. Arthur almost fell, his trousers around his knees preventing him from walking properly. He kicked them, and his shoes and socks, off and pushed Merlin backwards. Merlin wrapped his arms around Arthur’s neck, kissing him as he walked backwards.

There was a brief moment between Merlin feeling the bed on the back of his legs and falling onto it when Arthur didn’t realise they’d reached it. He pulled Arthur back with him, and he landed on top of him with a _thump_.

Arthur shrugged out of his waistcoat, throwing it on the floor. Merlin unwound his arms from Arthur’s neck to help him get rid of his shirt, but when he tried, Arthur’s hand grabbed his arm. He turned it round slowly so Merlin’s palm was facing up, and Arthur was looking at the tattoo on his wrist.

It was a triskelion, three black interlocking spirals with the point of the triangle facing outwards towards his hand. Merlin watched Arthur apprehensively as his eyes followed the lines of the tattoo.

“A tattoo, as well,” said Arthur. His voice went low, and he added, “You’re full of surprises.”

Arthur then moved very quickly. He let go of Merlin’s wrist, pulled his shirt over his head, one of the buttons coming off in the process and flying across the room. Merlin stared at Arthur’s chest as his hands moved down to Merlin’s trousers. Arthur’s chest hair was pale, matching that on his head, and it covered well defined abs that had always stayed hidden beneath his work shirts. Merlin ran his hands across them as Arthur made quick work of his belt and trousers, grabbing Merlin’s ass to lift him up and pull his trousers down as far as he could. Merlin kicked them off the rest of the way, along with his shoes and socks.

Arthur played with the waistband of Merlin’s briefs, running his fingers just beneath it. It drove Merlin crazy, knowing that Arthur was so close to touching his cock. He bucked his hips, trying to get Arthur to move and _do something_.

Arthur tugged at the briefs, and Merlin’s cock came free. The relief at the sudden release of pressure was enough for Merlin to not notice Arthur’s warmth leaving him, but he noticed when Arthur came back. Somewhere in the back of his brain he registered Arthur dropping something on the bed next to him, but Merlin didn’t care. Arthur was kissing him again, one hand wrapped around his cock now, pumping at an uneven rhythm that made Merlin’s toes curl and his eyes to  scrunch closed.

“Arthur…” Merlin moaned into his mouth.

“Turn over,” Arthur whispered, moving to kiss Merlin’s jaw. “I want to fuck you.”

Merlin felt his whole body become boneless, and Arthur had to help him roll over. He collapsed onto the bed, unable to hold himself up, and he let Arthur spread his buttocks. Arthur ran a finger down his crack until it reached his hole and Merlin flinched when he pressed against the ring of muscle.

Arthur’s hand disappeared. There was the sound of a bottle opening, liquid squirting out, and then his hand was back, cold and wet this time, and massaging around Merlin’s hole before Arthur pressed a finger in.

Merlin gripped the bed sheets at the burn as Arthur stretched his hole, quickly adding a second finger and scissoring, opening him up as quickly as possible. Merlin barely had time to get used to Arthur’s fingers inside him before he pulled them out, to be replaced by his cock.

It burned on the way in, but Merlin welcomed it, wanting Arthur to fuck him hard and fast, for him to wake up fucked raw in the morning.

But Arthur didn’t. Once he was seated all the way in, he stopped. Arthur leaned over Merlin so they were back to chest, one hand next to Merlin’s shoulder, propping him up, and the other was at Merlin’s hip, gripping tightly enough for there to be bruises. Arthur pressed a kiss to the nape of Merlin’s neck.

Merlin felt Arthur pull out slowly, letting Merlin feel the burn and giving him time to adjust to having Arthur’s cock in him.

Then Arthur slammed into him. Merlin let out a cry in shock, but Arthur didn’t stop, he kept fucking into him, his hand at Merlin’s hip migrating towards Merlin’s nipple, pulling and twisting at it, and Merlin didn’t realise that the groans and shouts filling the room were coming from him, so wrapped up he was in the feel of Arthur all around him, and he wanted this moment to last forever.

 Arthur was breathing onto Merlin’s neck, sweat dripping off him and running down Merlin’s back. His grunts as he thrust into Merlin grew louder until they were all Merlin could hear. Merlin pushed back on Arthur, silently urging him to go harder, desperate for more. Arthur adjusted his angle, and then Merlin was seeing stars. Arthur’s cock was hitting exactly the right spot and Merlin screamed out louder every time Arthur fucked into him.

The hand at Merlin’s nipple moved, trailing down his chest and finding his cock. Arthur grabbed it roughly and starting stroking it out of rhythm to his fucking. Merlin felt the tension in his groin rise, his hips jerking uncontrollably as Arthur kept fucking and stroking, overloading Merlin’s pleasure sensors. He could feel his orgasm growing until he was gasping for breath.

“Cum for me,” Arthur moaned into Merlin’s ear, teeth brushing his lobe before he felt them bite down on his neck.

Merlin did, cum pulsing onto his stomach and the bed beneath him. His muscles spasmed, and through the orgasm induced daze, he felt Arthur collapse on top of him moments later.

They lay like that for a long time, neither of them willing to move. Eventually, Arthur’s weight on top of him became too much, and he groaned. Arthur mumbled something in reply and got up briefly, settling onto the bed next to Merlin a few seconds later. Merlin’s eyelids fluttered shut.

When Merlin opened them again, it was hours later and he wasn’t initially sure where he was. His brain felt fuzzy, making it difficult to think, and there was a faint pounding in his head that promised to turn into a fully-fledge hangover in a few hours. There were vague memories of a party, dancing with Arthur, kissing him in a corridor… That was when Merlin realised he was naked, Arthur was snoring gently next to him, and his stomach was itchy.

Merlin rolled over slowly, trying not to disturb Arthur. Damage control wasn’t something Merlin was used to having to do after a hook-up, but it was something he was going to have to perfect in the next ten minutes. Maybe less.

He climbed out of bed, waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and looked around the room. Their clothes lay wherever they had been thrown. Merlin picked up what he could see was his in the near darkness and headed towards a door that looked like it was the bathroom.

Merlin tidied himself up, wiping up the dried come on his stomach and had a quick wash. He dressed in the clothes he’d brought in with him, but had accidently picked up Arthur’s trousers and was missing a sock.

He went back into the main room, still not daring to turn the light on in case he woke Arthur. While he was looking for his clothes, Merlin found a used condom next to the bin.

Well, that was one less thing to worry about.

Merlin found his trousers and pulled them on hurriedly. As he did, his missing sock fell out of them.

“What’re you… Where’re you going?” A voice said from behind Merlin. Merlin spun round.

Arthur was lying on his side facing Merlin, eyes open, hair mussed up, and obviously confused.

“I have to leave.” Merlin pulled on the sock and grabbed his shoe.

“It’s four am,” said Arthur. Merlin didn’t reply. “Stay,” Arthur added.

“I can’t.” Merlin finished tying his laces. He checked his trouser pockets for his phone and wallet. When he knew he had them, he walked to the door and opened it, light entering the room

He paused, unsure if he should say something, feeling like he should. Instead, Merlin took a deep breath and walked out. He didn’t look behind him for one last look at Arthur, not wanting to see the distraught expression on his face.

ooOOoo

“Good morning, how can I help you?”

Merlin was behind the reception desk at his mother’s hotel back in Ealdor. She had welcomed him home with open arms – squeezing him into a hug that he thought would suffocate him – and promptly ordered him to work at the front desk; the usual receptionist had the flu and his mum had a long list of other things that needed doing.

Merlin didn’t mind. He’d worked at the hotel growing up, and had invariably ended up helping out whenever he had come home to visit because something had gone terribly wrong.

Anyway, it helped him take his mind off the disastrous office party. Not that he was thinking about it. He absolutely wasn’t thinking about anything that had happened that night, or anyone he might have been with.

He especially wasn’t thinking about the completely devastated expression on a certain someone’s face as Merlin had left.

Merlin’s memories of that night were hazy at best. After one sleepless night spent trying to figure out what had happened, Merlin had decided that he could remember most events from before he had got up to get a second drink. After that, things got hazy until the point where he had no idea how he had ended up having sex with Arthur.

That was only half true though, because Merlin had a good guess about what had happened. His drink had been spiked, it was as simple as that. He remembered thinking it tasted weird, and there was no way he’d got drunk from a pint and a half. That didn’t happen to anyone, never mind him. The question was whether the barrel had been spiked, or just his glass. Merlin was leaning towards believing that it was just his glass, because the likelihood of someone spiking an entire barrel was low, but he didn’t know who had had access to his drink apart from the bartender, nor why someone would want to spike his drink.

Those two questions kept Merlin occupied during the long quiet hours working on reception.

Reception was nowhere near quiet at the moment, though. The heating had managed to break overnight and every room was sweltering as if it was the middle of summer in the Sahara. At least one person from each party had found it necessary to inform Merlin of this. As if he hadn’t already noticed, because they seemed to think that he always chose to wear t-shirts just a little bit too small in the middle of winter. He’d even put up a sign on the desk explaining that they were working to get the problem fixed, but it seemed no one could read because they asked him about it anyway.

Merlin was stressed, and his mum was even more stressed; she’d spent the morning ringing every plumber in town to see if they could fix it. If they couldn’t get the heating fixed they might have to close the hotel, and the guests were already irritable; it wasn’t a good combination.

Merlin was explaining to another old couple that they knew that there was a problem with the heating when he heard his mum come up behind him. She stood behind him until all the guests had finally left, and then she leaned down and said quietly, “Can I have a word?”

“Sure.” Merlin rolled his chair away from the front desk and around the corner into the empty office where the guests couldn’t see them. His mum scowled, following after him.

“Do they let you roll around at work?”

“At the station? Yeah.”

His mum’s eyes narrowed even more. “You’re working undercover again?”

“I think the technical answer is no,” Merlin said. His mum looked as if she was about to protest, but he spoke again before she could say anything. “Come on, mum, you know I can’t talk about it. I know you worry about me, but I can look after myself.”

The bell at the front desk rang. Merlin shouted “in a minute” and turned back to his mum, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

His mum’s eyes flickered away from him and back again so quick he would have missed it if he’d blinked.

“Can you fix the heating?” She said in a low voice.

Merlin let out a long sigh. His mum never asked him to use his magic for anything: clearly her search for a plumber hadn’t gone well. They were probably all either too busy or weren’t working this close to Christmas, and his mum’s options were running out.

“I can try,” said Merlin. “I don’t know how it would work, I don’t know anything about plumbing and the wordless stuff is always a bit… temperamental. I don’t want to make it worse.”

Merlin’s heart sank as he watched his mum’s face fall.

“No, mum, I’ll have a go, see what I can do. I might be help in some way even if I can’t fix it properly.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got a few more phone numbers I can try.”

“Mum…”

“You best go back to reception, I can hear someone talking.”

It was true, voices drifted around the corner and Merlin thought he recognised one. He was both happy to see who the voice belonged to and dreading it.

“I’m sorry,” Merlin started again, but his mum grabbed the back of his chair and pushed it around the corner.

As Merlin had expected, he was greeted by the sight of the back of a tall man with short brown hair. His jeans were baggy and too low on his hips, and the shirt he was wearing had obviously not been ironed. The man was rooting through one of the desk drawers taking out odd bits of stationary and muttering as he did so.

“Will, you aren’t supposed to be back here, get out,” Merlin said, standing up.

“Oh look, here he is,” Will said to the guest on the other side of reception. Then, he turned around. “Bet you were admiring my arse back there.”

“Not in a million years. By the way, my mum wants a word with you in the back.”

“What about?”

“I don’t know, possibly about pretending you work here and scaring the guests?”

“Shut up.” Will walked past Merlin on his way to the back room. “Good to see you again.”

“You, too.” Merlin grinned at Will, who beamed back before turning the corner.

“Sorry about him,” said Merlin as he put the stationary now scattered across the desk back in the drawer. “How can I help?”

Merlin glanced up at the person standing at the desk and froze.

It was Arthur.

His hair was windswept, as if he’d walked along the beachfront before deciding on this hotel. The straps from a laptop bag and a gym bag crossed his chest, and he looked as if he was sagging under the weight of them. Arthur looked paler and more tired than the last time Merlin had seen him sober. He had bags under his eyes and what looked like a two day old scruff on his chin.

Merlin’s immediate reaction was to apologise for the other night, and explain that it wasn’t supposed to have happened. It took Merlin a moment to remember that he wasn’t wearing his illusion and that Arthur hadn’t recognised him. It didn’t stop Merlin from tensing up, certain that at any moment Arthur would accuse him of lying and leaving in the middle of the night, both of which were true.

But all Arthur said was, “I was wondering if you had any vacancies.”

“We do, but our heating is broken at the moment so we’re unwilling to take on any guests who haven’t pre-booked. I’m sorry.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“We don’t know.” Merlin gritted his teeth – he’d had too many people ask him that over the past hour. “We woke up this morning and it was overheating and we can’t get it to switch off.”

Arthur grimaced. “I might be able to help, I know a guy.”

“We’ve tried all the plumbers around here, but they’re either busy or aren’t working this close to the holidays.”

“He isn’t from around here, and he owes me a favour.”

Merlin hesitated. “I want to insist that we’re fine and you don’t need to call in a favour, but we’re actually really struggling to find someone to fix it.”

“That’s what I thought.” Arthur smiled. “Have you got a phone?”

Merlin called his mum from the back. She came out with Will trailing after, and Merlin explained everything. He could see that she was almost in tears, desperately trying anything to make sure they wouldn’t have to close the hotel and end up helping to re-house all their guests. His mum instantly agreed to allow Arthur to ring the plumber he knew, and Merlin passed him the reception phone.

This time, Arthur froze, his eyes staring at Merlin’s hand, and it took him a moment to realise that Arthur was staring at the tattoo on his wrist.

“Interesting tattoo,” Arthur finally said, accepting the phone and starting to dial a number. “Someone I know has a similar one.”

“It’s kind of common round here, everyone around my age went through a phase and got one,” Merlin lied. Arthur nodded, and turned away from the desk, waiting for his friend to pick up the phone.

Arthur’s conversation lasted ten minutes, during which time Merlin could only catch the occasional word, as Arthur spoke quickly and quietly. After Arthur hung up, he gave the phone back to Merlin. “He’s on his way.”

Merlin’s mum ushered Arthur away into the café area, thanking him and insisting on making him a cup of tea for his troubles. Merlin was left at reception with Will for company.

It took Arthur’s plumber two hours to get there, during which time five people asked Merlin about the heating (one old man came twice), Merlin received two phone calls back from plumbers who his mum had left a message for, and who were sorry that they were on holiday, and Will filled him in on the gossip around town that Merlin had missed. Apparently someone they had gone to school with had gotten hot, Will’s cousin was getting married again, and there had been uproar by the local residents when the council had threatened to take down a graffitied statue that was so old that weathering had made it impossible to tell what it was supposed to be.

When the plumber arrived, he introduced himself as Alator, and Merlin didn’t dare ask whether that was his first or last name. He was a few inches shorter than Merlin and was bald, with several tattoos on his neck and one pierced ear, a small gold loop that reflected the light. Alator was carrying a large black toolbox that rattled as he walked.

Merlin sent Alator through to the café, where he was called to a few minutes later. His mum had volunteered him to give Alator a tour of the hotel so he could inspect the heating. Arthur insisted on coming with them, despite Merlin’s mum’s insistence that he should stay where he was and she’d get him another drink of tea. The little table they were sat at already had three empty mugs on it, and Merlin guessed that his mum had been getting Arthur a new one every time he finished one.

The tour of the hotel didn’t take long; there were only three floors, each with half a dozen rooms on them. Merlin walked a few steps ahead of Alator and Arthur, not wanting to intrude on the conversation they had struck up.

In each room that they went in, Alator inspected the radiators, twisting the dial to turn them on and off, and feeling them with his hands, pulling out a tool from his box and doing something with it that Merlin couldn’t see. Arthur was silent while he did this, standing a metre or so away with his arms crossed, staring intently at Alator. Merlin thought he heard Alator muttering as he worked, but in the next heartbeat, Arthur would start talking as if their conversation had never stopped.

The tour finished with the basement where the boiler was kept. Arthur didn’t join them down there, for which Merlin was grateful. Having Arthur in his mum’s hotel unnerved him, especially after what had happened at the office party, and it was made worse by the fact that Arthur didn’t know who he was and wasn’t uncomfortable in the slightest. Merlin knew he should be polite and talkative so that Arthur wouldn’t regret helping them out, but he found himself unable to think of anything to say that would keep his undercover identity a secret.

Merlin sat down on the floor of the basement, staring into space while Alator fiddled with the boiler. He was mumbling again, and this time Merlin tried to make out the words: they sounded mostly like nonsense, but every now and then Merlin thought he recognised something, only for it to be followed by something incomprehensible. It didn’t sound like any sort of language Merlin knew, not that he knew many.

As Merlin started paying attention to what Alator was saying, he felt the magic inside him start to build up. Merlin forced it back down again in panic, not immediately connecting Alator’s nonsense words to it. But the more Merlin listened, the more his magic tickled under his skin. Nothing he tried was able stop it.

Alator took a step away and announced, “Fixed.”

“That was quick.” Merlin stood up and headed towards the stairs. Alator followed him up and back to reception.  “How much do we owe you?”

“Nothing. Arthur said he was footing the bill.”

“What – no.”

“Take it up with him. I’ve got to get home and don’t have time to discuss this.”

They reached the reception, where Merlin’s mum and Arthur were waiting for them. His mum looked anxious. Arthur was calmly leaning against the desk, watching the two of them approach.

Alator said goodbye, and Arthur told him to send him an invoice. Merlin’s mum thanked them both profusely, and then Alator was gone. The only thing left to do was to sort out a room for Arthur, for Merlin to wonder how Arthur knew a sorcerer, and whether or not Arthur knew his friend could use magic.

Arthur booked in to stay for the few days over Christmas, and Merlin did his best to avoid him. Fortunately, the hotel ran smoothly and Merlin wasn’t needed to cover reception or another job that would put him in close proximity to Arthur. On the other hand, it was still Christmas week. He was busy helping to prepare food, or working in the office to keep everything up to date while his mum made sure the guests were satisfied.

Christmas day itself was uneventful. After the initial morning rush, Merlin and his mum exchanged presents - Merlin had bought her a tablet so she wouldn’t have to rely on the ancient computer in the office. In turn he received a couple of books he’d mentioned wanting to read and several pairs of socks.

The day after Boxing Day, the hotel was surprisingly quiet. Merlin had seen Arthur leave the hotel straight after breakfast, and was able to help his mum with the usual morning chores around the hotel without worrying about running into him. Working together, they finished much earlier than expected, and Merlin took the extra free time as an excuse to visit Will.

Merlin met Will at the small village square, and they walked down to the beach. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant beach: there were more rocks than sand, and at this time of year the sea was cold and grey like iron, waves crashing against the shore, threatening to drag anyone out to sea who was foolish enough to go in it. The taste of salty air was familiar to Merlin, though, and he always liked to visit the beach whenever he came home.

While they walked, Will gave Merlin the full catch up of events that couldn’t be said when guests might be listening in, mainly, how the murders in Camelot were affecting the rest of the country.

“The fear’s spreading, I think. Everyone’s seeing the deaths in the newspapers every few weeks and they’re just waiting for them to extend outside of Camelot,” Will said. Merlin could only nod; he’d assumed as much. “I mean, it’s not like sorcerers ever really practised in the open, but the kids who didn’t know any different would. Not doing so was something they learned on their own. But now you see parents rushing to cover for their kids, it’s not right. Someone at work was crying the other day because their baby was showing signs of magic, and they’re terrified someone’s going to come after them.”

Merlin didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything he could say – his undercover work wasn’t progressing fast enough and the police only had suspicions and a handful of leads. They needed more than that to be able to make arrests and put a stop to the deaths.

“I don’t suppose you know anything the rest of us don’t?” Will asked, turning to look at Merlin.

Merlin avoided his gaze.

“Come on, Merls.”

“You know I can’t say anything. These aren’t even undercover rules, it’s normal police stuff.”

Will sighed, it was barely audible over the sound of waves crashing and the wind blowing around them. “I know. You’d tell me though, if there was serious stuff going on that they won’t tell the rest of us?”

“I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you specifics.”

“But you’d say that there was more to it.”

“Of course,” Merlin lied. Honestly, he didn’t know what he’d do if information was being withheld that would affect people he cared about.

Will didn’t say anything, and Merlin took that as a clear sign that he knew he was lying. Will didn’t press it though, and they carried on walking in silence.

The weather was terrible today, with grey clouds that threatened to rain and gusts of wind that carried the sea spray and soaked them, despite being over fifty metres from the sea. Hardly anyone was around town, never mind walking along the beach, but Merlin could see a lone figure approaching them, their body hunched to try to protect them from the worst of the cold. They must be mad to go for a walk along the beach today, but then, Merlin and Will were doing the same thing. They did it for a reason though; it was hard to eavesdrop when the wind was howling in your ears and you were preoccupied with the cold that was chilling you to the bone. The person walking on their own must have a death wish, or something terrible had happened that made it seem appropriate to walk in the freezing cold.

“Are you staying safe, you know, in Camelot?” Will asked, suddenly. It didn’t take a genius for Merlin to figure out what he meant.

“What sort of a question is that? Of course I am.” Merlin thought he felt the first few raindrops hit his face and he scowled up at the clouds.

“I’m just making sure. I worry.”

“You’re worse than my mum.”

“That’s probably because I know all the stuff you never tell your mum.”

“No one knows. No one’s going to know.”

“Your bosses…”

“Ah yes, the people fighting the S.C.F. are going to just offer me up to them.”

Will glared at him. He looked as if he was about to start on an angry rant, but Merlin raised his eyebrows and poked him sharply in the side with his elbow. The person walking towards them was close enough now for Merlin to see that it was a man, and Merlin’s heart sank as they drew closer and recognised him. It was Arthur.

Couldn’t Merlin go anywhere without running into him? He tried to go home to visit his mum and Arthur turns up and books a room in her hotel. He goes for a walk on the beach on the most miserable day of the year, and he runs into Arthur. The universe was plotting against him.

Merlin hoped that Will wouldn’t recognise Arthur from the other day, but Will had the best memory out of anyone Merlin knew, and as Arthur passed them – head down and looking sorry for himself – Will called to him.

“Hey, it’s Arthur, right?”

Arthur jumped in surprise, looking around at them with his eyes wide. It seemed to take a moment for him to place them, his eyes going from Will to Merlin, who stayed standing a few paces behind Will.

“Oh, you’re from the hotel. Yes, I am.”

Will pointed at Merlin. “He is, not me. I just show up every now and again and help out.”

“Try to make a nuisance, more like,” Merlin muttered.

“I heard that,” Will said cheerfully. Then, turning to Arthur, “What are you doing out here?”

“Just felt like a walk.” Arthur shrugged. “I know someone who grew up here and he always talks about how nice it is.”

“Just not when it’s miserable and cold and you can’t walk for the wind blowing you over.”

“Apparently.” The three of them stood in silence for a moment. “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to go, I left my umbrella behind and it looks like it’s going to rain.”

Arthur left with a small smile. Merlin and Will continued walking, Will looking over his shoulder to watch Arthur walk away.

“You know him,” Will said.

“What?”

“You didn’t say anything to him and you’re usually politer to guests than that. How do you know him?”

“I don’t know him.”

“Haven’t I already told you today that you’re a bad liar?”

“It was implied, I don’t think you actually said it.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“Thanks.”

“Is he from the top secret undercover work you can’t talk about?”

Merlin rolled his eyes. The raindrops hitting his face grew in intensity and he lifted his hood to prevent the worst of the soaking as they headed back to the hotel.

ooOOoo

The Christmas break was too short for Merlin, and before he knew it, he was heading back to Camelot again. He didn’t want to go. It didn’t feel like he’d had a break, what with Arthur turning up. After the disaster of the office party he’d wanted the week and a bit to clear his head and get past the awkwardness. But instead he’d spent half the time avoiding Arthur and, when he’d been forced into Arthur’s company, being convinced that he was going to recognise him at any minute. It hadn’t been a fun break, and Merlin thought perhaps his mum had picked up on how he’d been feeling, because she sent him off with a Tupperware box full of her baking. Merlin tried not to think about how late his mum must have stayed up to bake for him, so he kissed her goodbye and drove back to Camelot.

Getting out of bed on his first day back at work was a struggle for Merlin. It was cold and dark, and he’d got used to having someone else prepare a cooked breakfast for him. The loneliness of waking up to his empty flat struck Merlin as he pottered about getting ready for work. He’d been living on his own for years, and he’d enjoyed having a flat to himself after growing up with the hussle and bussle of the hotel, but Merlin had got used to always having people around him. Now his flat felt too big for him.

When Merlin arrived at work, the sun was just starting to peek out at him from over the tops of the buildings. The way up to his office was quiet, and Merlin’s footsteps echoed up the stairwell as he climbed up to his floor.

To Merlin’s surprise, his office wasn’t empty when he walked in. Gwen was sat at her desk, her back to him, and didn’t appear to have heard him come in.

“Hi,” Merlin said.

“Oh, hello,” Gwen said spinning round in her chair. Merlin placed his briefcase on the floor and turned on his computer. “How was your holiday?”

“Eh,” Merlin replied, typing his username and password into the computer. “It was okay, nice to spend some time with my mum. How was yours?”

“It was good, my brother came down to visit, which was a surprise. We weren’t expecting him, and normally he and my dad end up arguing, but they didn’t. I think my brother’s finally grown up.”

“That’s good.” Merlin opened his emails and inwardly groaned at the number that had built up over his time away. He started going through and deleting the spam, not really paying attention to what Gwen was saying. He assumed that she was still talking about how her Christmas had been. It took a moment after she had stopped talking for him to notice. Merlin turned around. “Sorry, what?”

Gwen pursed her lips. “I said, did you stay at the office party long after we left?”

Of course she’d ask about that, and there was no way Merlin was telling her what had happened.

“No, I hung around for a bit and got a taxi home.” It wasn’t technically a lie.

Gwen nodded and went back to her computer. Merlin turned around to find that he’d received another one in the few seconds that he’d looked away.

“Shit,” Merlin muttered. The email was from Arthur, and didn’t have a subject. Dreading what he was about to read, Merlin opened it.

_I think we should talk. Lunch? –A_

Merlin sighed. Of course Arthur would want to talk; he’d spent at least one morning walking along the beach in Ealdor in the freezing cold. Only someone who needed to do some serious thinking did that, and the result of serious thinking was usually a serious discussion with the person you were thinking about.

Merlin sent back one word.

The morning passed far too quickly for Merlin’s liking, and before he knew it, he was walking up to Arthur’s office. George was at his desk as usual, Merlin greeted him and sat down on his usual chair outside Arthur’s office. He heard the sound of George typing on his keyboard, the click of a mouse, and barely two minutes later Arthur’s office door opened and he walked out.

Arthur nodded at Merlin. “Hello.”

“Hi,” Merlin said, standing up, and he followed Arthur out of the room.

They walked down in silence, and if Merlin thought Arthur would start talking once they’d left the building then he was wrong. Arthur stayed quiet, looking straight ahead and not even glancing at Merlin.

Whatever Arthur had to say, he was clearly waiting to say it until they were in a place where Merlin couldn’t make a scene. Or maybe he was waiting for Merlin to speak first; it wouldn’t be unreasonable, considering that Merlin was the one who had left without a word, but Arthur had been the one who had wanted to talk, which suggested that he had something specific he wanted to talk about.

They walked down the road to their usual coffee shop, the silence between them becoming too much for Merlin. Arthur was walking fast, a few paces in front of Merlin, and Merlin was struggling to keep up.

“How was your Christmas?” Merlin asked, taking a couple of long strides to catch up with Arthur.

“Alright.” Arthur’s voice was quiet and Merlin had to really pay attention to hear what he was saying. “Went away for a few days to try to clear my head.”

“Did it work?”

“I don’t know yet.” Arthur kept walking.

They were on the same road as the coffee shop now, albeit on the wrong side. A large group of people was walking towards them, and Merlin had to resort to walking behind Arthur again to let them pass. The people didn’t bother trying to make room for anyone else on the pavement, and one of them knocked into Arthur, pushing him into the road, just as a car came speeding round the corner.

Merlin’s world froze.

He saw Arthur’s surprised expression switch to one of annoyance and then fear as if in slow-motion, unable to break the momentum that had forced him into the car’s way. The man who had knocked Arthur into the road half turned around to apologise and then stopped as he realised what was happening. The person driving the car looked on in panic, the car slowing down but not nearly quickly enough.

Merlin threw out a hand reflexively, shouting Arthur’s name. His magic - that normally stayed dormant unless he consciously cast a spell - burst to life.

Merlin felt the tendrils of it extend from his outstretched hand. He felt them wrap around Arthur and pull hard, dragging Arthur back to the pavement, just in time. Arthur tripped over the curb, landing on the floor in front of Merlin.

Everyone surrounding them was staring. A few people edged away, giving Merlin side-long glances. Merlin didn’t care. His heart beating fast in his chest, Merlin knelt down next to Arthur.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Arthur stood up. “You…”

“I didn’t do anything.”

People started to carry on with their journeys as soon as it became obvious that Arthur was alright. The car had stopped a few metres past where Arthur had been in the road, and was driving away now, at a much slower speed than it had been at before.

Arthur was looking at Merlin with a frown. Merlin stared back, ignoring the people around them complaining that they were in the way. Arthur grabbed Merlin’s arm, pulling himself to his feet, and then pulled Merlin down the street and into a narrow alleyway between a newsagents and a florists. Arthur pushed Merlin against the wall, and put his arms on either side of him, trapping him with his body.

“I heard you shout my name, and then I was being pulled back to the pavement.”

“Of course I shouted your name, I thought that car was going to hit you.”

“I saw your eyes go gold.”

“Trick of the light,” Merlin said half-heartedly. He already knew that Arthur wasn’t going to stop until Merlin admitted to using magic.

“You’re a really bad liar.”

Merlin didn’t have anything to say to that.

“You used magic.”

Merlin didn’t say anything. He looked down at his feet.

“You didn’t put that on your job application. My father could have you fired for this.”

“Your father never would have hired me if he’d known,” Merlin said. “I don’t put it on job applications because if I do they don’t even invite me to interview. We’re already in hiding, already being hunted and killed, I don’t need to be unemployed on top of that.”

“You could have told me.”

“Because you’re taking it so well now.”

“I’ve just nearly been ran over and found out that one of my friends was lying to me.”

Merlin made to force his way past Arthur, but Arthur grabbed his arm. Merlin struggled, trying to break Arthur’s grip. In the struggle, Merlin’s coat sleeve was pulled up his arm, exposing his wrist.

Arthur spotted the tattoo. Merlin froze.

“I met someone else over Christmas with the same tattoo,” Arthur said slowly. “I thought he looked like he recognised me, but I brushed it off. He did seem to avoid me, though, he’d always chat to the other hotel guests but not me.

“What’s going on? Why are you using an illusion?”

“I’m not.” Merlin smiled in an attempt to look relaxed and just a little confused at what Arthur was talking about. “This is me.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I thought we were friends. For fuck’s sake, we – and you aren’t even who you say you are!”

“Arthur…”

“What?”

Merlin didn’t know what to do. His objective, to get information on Uther so they could prosecute him for assisting a terrorist organisation, was going nowhere. It had been obvious for some time that Merlin couldn’t do it on his own. He needed help from someone with more standing in the business. Arthur had been the perfect person.

But Merlin had really messed up at the Christmas party. It had been blatantly obvious from the beginning that Arthur was attracted to him, and Merlin’s inhibitions had been lowered enough for him to finally give in. Arthur trusted him too much. They’d become too close, and Arthur finding out now that Merlin wasn’t who he said he was would tear Arthur up if what Sefa had told him at the Christmas party was true; that when Arthur fell for someone, he fell hard. Merlin should have planned to tell Arthur from the beginning, and having him find out this way would surely end with Arthur firing him and never wanting to see him again.

The alternative was for Merlin to carry on denying that he was using an illusion, and hope that, eventually, Arthur would believe his lies, or accept that Merlin was lying and that he couldn’t tell Arthur the truth.

Either way, there was a good chance that Merlin would lose Arthur’s trust, would lose his _friendship_ , and Merlin didn’t want to do either.

He had to make a decision, and quickly. Arthur was watching him, waiting for him to say something, and the longer Merlin stayed silent, the more he could see Arthur’s expression closing off.

Merlin broke free of Arthur’s grasp on his arm.

“Come with me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll explain everything, if you come.”

Merlin saw hesitation cross Arthur’s face, but it quickly faded.

“Lead the way,” Arthur said.

This time Merlin hesitated. He watched Arthur, trying to read his face, but it was expressionless, giving no hint to what he was thinking.

Merlin walked out of the alley, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Arthur was following. They walked in silence back to the Pendragon offices, and rather than go back in, Merlin led the way to his battered old car.

He unlocked his car and got in. When Arthur didn’t, Merlin leaned over and opened the passenger door, raising his eyebrows at Arthur.

He got in, and Merlin started the engine.

The silence stretched as Merlin drove. He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t telling Arthur where they were going. He told himself that he didn’t want to scare Arthur, but that felt like a lie. Merlin tried not to think about how badly he’d betrayed Arthur’s trust.

They pulled into the station car park.

“We’re here?” Arthur asked when Merlin found a parking space and turned off the engine.

“Yep.” Merlin leaned over Arthur to open the glove compartment. To most other people, it had a stiff handle and wouldn’t open, but Merlin touched the handle, said the spell to open it, and pulled it open. He ignored Arthur’s look of surprise as he grabbed his police I.D., and closed the glove compartment again.

“You work for the police.” It was a statement, not a question, and Arthur’s voice was accusatory.

“I’m an undercover officer.” Merlin stretched his neck to look in the rearview mirror and said another spell. He felt his face heat and prickle uncomfortably, as if someone was stabbing him with hundreds of needles. At the same time, he watched his features bubble, and return to their original shapes and sizes. Smiling to himself, Merlin opened the car door. “Coming?” he said to Arthur.

Arthur followed him into the station building, a step behind Merlin at all times. The man on reception started to say good afternoon to Merlin when he saw him, but stopped as soon as he spotted Arthur. Merlin just nodded, not wanting to stop and explain.

They walked down the long, windowless corridors, passing more people Merlin knew who were about to say hello until they recognised Arthur behind him. Merlin would nod or say a short hello without stopping, silently amused at their confused looks, but also dreading what was going to happen when Merlin got to his office and would have to talk to Arthur.

It looked like no one had touched Merlin’s office since the last time Merlin had locked it up. The metal sign on his door proudly stating _M. Emrys_ had a fine layer of dust on the top, and Merlin blew at it to try to displace it. It didn’t work well, and Merlin sighed before pulling out his keys and unlocking the door.

Everything was exactly as he’d left it, down to the bin half full of chocolate wrappers and crisp packets, except that now everything had a thin layer of dust on it. The piles of papers on his desk were still there, the photo-frame containing a photo of his mum, Will, and himself still stood next to his computer. The books he’d meant to take back to the library - but had ended up just renewing for the past few months - were still on his bookcase. Surprisingly, Merlin’s office chair still had indents in it from the way he sat.

Merlin walked around his desk and sat down. He gestured for Arthur to sit in the rickety old wooden chair on the other side. Arthur sat, and Merlin watched him take in his office. After a moment, Arthur’s attention returned to Merlin.

Without preamble, Merlin said, “My name is Merlin Emrys, I’m an undercover officer. I was assigned to infiltrate _Pendragon Pharmaceuticals_ to find out information about your father. More specifically, to determine his position regarding the S.C.F. murders.”

“What?” Arthur said, shocked. “My father’s not –”

“We have some evidence that he is involved, although that didn’t come to light until after I’d started my work. We’d tried to get information on the S.C.F. directly, to stop them, but they proved elusive. It was obvious they were being funded by someone from the start, what with the large quantities of highly expensive chemicals found in the victims’ blood. We decided the best way to stop them would be to find out where their funding was coming from, and so a list of suspects was made. Undercover officers were sent to get information on each of them. Your father was on the list and he was assigned to me.

“Since I started working for _Pendragon_ , chemicals found in the blood of the victims has been traced back to your company, there has been an increasing number of chemical thefts from the company –”

“How do you know about that?” asked Arthur.

Merlin smiled, but didn’t answer Arthur’s question. “- and Uther has been seen in the company of an identified member of the S.C.F.”

“When?”

“At the Christmas party. I saw him with a man named Agravaine du Bois, and immediately informed my colleagues. Unfortunately, nothing came of it.”

Arthur’s face paled.

“My father’s been meeting him for months. He told me he was a business associate.” Arthur’s voice was numb and his eyes were glazed over, staring at the awful painting behind Merlin. He was the picture of the betrayed, and Merlin knew that he was partly to fault for that.

Merlin left Arthur to his thoughts for a moment. It was a lot to take in, and now that Arthur knew the truth, Merlin didn’t have an excuse not to question him about it, and find out whether he had any information that could be useful. From the way Arthur had reacted, it was obvious that Arthur had no knowledge about Uther’s involvement in the S.C.F., but that didn’t mean he didn’t know anything.

“Why –” Arthur swallowed. “Why was my father a suspect?”

“For the C.E.O. of a pharmaceuticals company, he has a strong hatred of sorcerers. It’s fairly well known that your mother was caught in the crossfire during the initial riots and killed, he’s supported several anti-sorcerer petitions and laws – that’s not public knowledge of course, but our information team is highly skilled enough to find out information that people would rather keep quiet. We knew that the S.C.F. had to be getting their chemicals from somewhere. Everything fits together, we just don’t have solid evidence.”

Arthur stared blankly at Merlin.

“I’m sorry, Arthur.”

“We’ve had our differences, but this… I need to talk to him, this can’t be right.”

“I can’t let you do that. It’ll ruin the mission.”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Arthur blinked, his gaze focussing on Merlin, and there was anger in his eyes.

“You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do. I trusted you! I thought we were – we were friends, but everything’s been a lie. All you care about is this mission and getting information from me about my father, is that why you let me fuck you? To make me think that I could trust you, when really you’ve been lying to me this whole time and you’re secretly married with two point four kids.”

“Arthur, that’s not…”

“Don’t tell me that’s not what happened. You told me that you just wanted to be friends, then you sleep with me to keep me interested, so I don’t move onto someone else until you’ve got what you wanted?”

“Arthur!” Merlin shouted, succeeding in quietening Arthur. Merlin stood up, placing his hands on his desk and leaning forwards. “That isn’t what happened. The Christmas party – that was a mistake. I’m sorry, but it was. My drink was spiked and I didn’t realise. That was never part of the plan.”

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “Your drink was spiked?”

“No one gets drunk from a pint and a half.” Merlin took a deep breath, thankful that he’d managed to stop Arthur’s rage in its tracks. He sat back down. “I’m not married with kids, most of what you know about me is true, but you know that. You know I grew up in Ealdor in my mum’s hotel, my best friend is Will and he’s a massive ass. I’m gay, with no kids or partner. I only lied about the things I had to, otherwise it all becomes too much to remember and you get caught out.”

“You’ve done undercover work before?”

“Yes - and no, I don’t fuck everyone to get the information I need out of them,” Merlin said. “I know this is a lot to take in. You’ve been betrayed by two people you care about, and I’m sorry. But now you know, I’m going to need to ask you to not tell anyone, and for your assistance.”

“You want me to help you find evidence against my father?”

“Yes.”

Arthur hesitated. “He’s my father. I don’t always agree with him, but…”

Merlin waited for Arthur to finish the sentence. And waited. Arthur’s head was bowed, staring at his hands in his lap.

“Do you need to question me about it now?” Arthur said, looking up into Merlin’s eyes. Merlin wondered what he saw there, because the longer Arthur looked at him, the less pained he seemed to become and sat up straighter in his chair.

“Not right now, but the longer we wait, the more time we’re giving them to find a new victim.”

Arthur nodded. “Then we do it now.”

ooOOoo

Despite the interview at the police station going well and Arthur’s acceptance of Merlin’s magic, Merlin had expected to get into work the next morning and find all his things in a box and a pre-written letter of resignation on his desk that all he had to do was sign. There wasn’t. Merlin was absurdly happy that Arthur hadn’t changed his mind.

That happiness was short-lived, however, when Merlin didn’t receive the usual one word email from Arthur asking him to lunch. Merlin took that as a sign that Arthur hadn’t fully forgiven him, and he accepted it, knowing that the best thing to do in this situation was usually to let the other person work through their grievance on their own rather than to pester them. Arthur didn’t contact him for two weeks, and Merlin tried his best to not let it bother him. It was hard when he knew that the others in his office, and probably even in his department, had noticed that he wasn’t going to lunch with Arthur. They didn’t say anything, though, and Merlin didn’t bring it up. Instead, he started joining them for their regular lunches in the kitchen.

Eating with them helped Merlin feel better about not seeing Arthur, because Merlin missed him. He missed him a surprising amount considering that barely a week ago he’d been annoyed at Arthur’s near constant presence in his life. Going for lunch together had become a habit, it was just something they did and Merlin wondered how he’d ever gone without, because breaking the habit threw him off for the weeks that they didn’t meet up. He found it harder to concentrate in the afternoon if he hadn’t discussed the latest political situation with Arthur, or made Arthur laugh so much coffee came out of his nose, and then have to listen to him complain about it on the walk back. Merlin’s days were dull without Arthur, and he waited for the day that he’d open his emails to find one from him.

It was after lunch one day, when Merlin had given up on Arthur ever talking to him again that he returned to find a new email from him. Merlin let out a small surprised noise that was covered up by the sounds of chairs squeaking as people sat back down, but Sefa still glanced his way. Merlin did his best to turn it into a cough.

Merlin opened the email. It had no subject heading.

_Don’t know how much these will help – A_

Attached were several images of scanned pages of a diary. Uther’s diary. Merlin quickly closed them and opened up the company’s intranet.

The afternoon went slowly after that, as if it knew that all Merlin wanted was for the others in his office to leave so he could properly examine the images Arthur had sent him. When it reached five o’clock, Merlin was relieved; everyone would start packing up and leaving and he’d be left on his own. But that didn’t happen. Gwen, Sefa, Isolde, and Tristan stayed an extra ten minutes, fifteen, half an hour. Merlin kept an eye on the clock at the bottom of his screen, silently begging for them to go. He’d ran out of work to do a while ago and was becoming restless.

Eventually, Gwen started packing her things away, and the others followed suit. Tristan was the last one to leave, and he paused at the door on his way out.

“You okay, Drake?”

“I’m fine,” Merlin kept his eyes on the computer, pretending to be busy. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, bye.”

The door clicked shut. Merlin waited a few moments, listening to the muffled sound of footsteps fading. When he was sure that there was no longer anyone in the corridor, Merlin opened his emails and pulled up the images of Uther’s diary.

They went back until September, showing Uther’s days full of meetings and phone calls he had to make. Occasionally, Uther had gone back to make quick notes on what the meeting had been about, but none of them made sense to Merlin. Arthur had made notes on the images too, adding here and there that Uther had had a meeting that hadn’t been put in the diary. These extra meetings seemed random at first, but it didn’t take long for Merlin to grow suspicious. He opened the files he had taken from the research department before Christmas and checked the invoices from the chemical deliveries. The unrecorded meetings Uther was having were always a few days after a delivery, but they were all at different times, and Arthur hadn’t noted a location.

There was a knock on the office door and it opened. Merlin panicked, trying to find a page to pull up that didn’t look suspicious. He quickly clicked on the internet, and the Google search screen appeared just as Merlin looked up to find Arthur standing in the doorway.

“You’re a terrible secret agent.”

“Wow, it’s a good thing no one ever tells you anything that you have to keep secret. Oh, wait.”

“I can have you fired.”

“Yeah, sure.” Merlin turned back to his computer and opened his emails again.

“You got the files I sent you?” Arthur asked. He moved to stand behind Merlin’s chair and peered over his shoulder to see the computer screen.

“Yes. There’s nothing suspicious about what he’s actually wrote in it, it all looks like general owning a business work. Your notes, however…”

“Yes?”

“They add something else. Uther’s meeting someone – or different people – at seemingly random times, mostly in the middle of the day, sometimes just before or after professional meetings. He isn’t the one deciding when to have them.” Merlin paused. “If he is funding these people, he should have the power to decide when the most convenient time to meet is, but he isn’t doing that.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” Merlin grumbled. “Or everything. I don’t know. Maybe he’s asked them for too many favours and now they feel like he owes them? Uther got in too deep and they won’t let him quit? “

“How could he have got in too deep?”

“I don’t know, I’m thinking out loud.”

There was silence as Merlin opened up another image and they read it. It was from the week of the Christmas party, and the only note on the Friday was “ _A_ ”. Merlin moved the cursor to hover over the letter.

“Agravaine.”

“You think?”

“Definitely. I saw him at the party, remember? Now the question is how many of the A’s in here are you and how many are Agravaine.”

Arthur groaned. “I’m going to have to compare my diary with this, aren’t I?”

“Afraid so.”

“Gives me something to do tomorrow, I suppose.” Arthur paused. “You know the chemical thefts?”

“Yes.”

“Have you tried checking the CCTV to see if you can spot who’s taking them?”

“Yep, no luck.”

“Oh. What about checking the company’s accounts to see if he’s transferring money across?”

“Done that, too. There’s nothing suspicious.”

Merlin reached the latest diary pages. It didn’t contain any cryptic messages, just meeting times and places for the week. Merlin closed the window and turned to speak to Arthur, forgetting that he was leaning over his shoulder and almost head-butting him.

“Sorry,” said Merlin, moving his head back before continuing, “I need you to get your father’s bank statements, anything to do with his finances. He isn’t funding the S.C.F. out of the company so he must be doing it out of his own pocket.”

Arthur was quiet for a long time, keeping his gaze focussed on the computer screen. Merlin watched him, knowing the situation that Arthur was going through was a horrible one that Merlin wouldn’t wish upon anyone.

“Okay,” Arthur said. “We should probably go, security will be doing the rounds soon and will want to know why you’re still here.”

“Right.” Merlin closed down all the open windows and turned the computer off. Arthur waited while Merlin grabbed his briefcase and coat, and they walked down the corridor together to the stairwell. Their friendship that had rekindled while they had been in Merlin’s office had disappeared again, and they walked in silence. After an awkward goodbye, Arthur went back to his office, and Merlin walked downstairs, staring at the floor, and wondering whether he and Arthur would ever be friends again.

He was so distracted that he didn’t notice the small red car parked a few rows behind his own, and that it followed him almost all the way home.

It was almost a week later when Arthur emailed Merlin again, and Merlin had started to think that Arthur had changed his mind and didn’t want to help him anymore. Merlin was pleasantly surprised when he saw another email from Arthur, again without a subject heading, and this time the email didn’t have any attachments, but it was slightly longer:

_Found what you wanted. Come to my office at 5 and help me go through them? – A_

Merlin looked at the time. It was only half ten. He started tapping his middle finger on the computer mouse.

Another slow day followed. Nothing was able to hold his attention for long and he ended up doing busy work that made him feel like he was being productive, even if he wasn’t. He offered to get everyone in his office a drink, proceeded to make them and wash up the mugs afterwards, as well as reply to a handful of emails that didn’t need replying to, and take out the bins in the office and the kitchen. After he’d done that and couldn’t think of anything else to do, Merlin sat in his chair and began adjusting the height and angle of the back.

“Drake, are you alright?” Gwen asked. “You seem very fidgety today.”

“I’m fine,” said Merlin, slowly raising the height of his chair back to how it had previously been.

With that, Merlin went back to work, but it didn’t stop him from checking the time every few minutes to see whether it was five o’clock yet.

When five o’clock did roll around, Merlin did his best to not jump out of his chair, but he didn’t think he did a good job of it. Sefa looked up at him in surprise, and as Merlin was packing up his things, Gwen asked him, “Got somewhere to be?”

“Yep,” Merlin said. He didn’t hang around; he grabbed his coat from the back of his chair, picked up his briefcase and left.

The corridor was noisy, with people opening and closing office doors as they left. Merlin had to dodge people milling around to chat as he hurried to the stairwell. From there, he was going against the tide of people coming down and it was a struggle to not end up with his face in someone’s chest.

When Merlin reached Arthur’s office, George was gone; Merlin must have passed him on the way up. Merlin knocked on Arthur’s door and waited. Arthur shouted for him to come in, and Merlin pushed open the door.

After all of the times Merlin had waited outside Arthur’s office, he’d never gone in, or seen much beyond the doorway. The red carpet continued into Arthur’s office and the walls were painted cream, but apart from that, Arthur had done his best to make his office as different to the rest of the building as possible. No certificates lined his walls, instead there were photos of Arthur and his friends, as well as the occasional piece of modern art. There was a bookcase behind his desk that had some books on it, but it was mostly filled with full file folders and clutter. Post-it notes adorned his desk, and framed his computer screen. There was a variety of dirty mugs, ranging from one that had the meaning of his name to one with a space at the bottom to put biscuits.

“Hi,” Arthur said, briefly glancing up from his computer. “Sit down, I just need to finish this.”

On the other side of Arthur’s desk was a proper office chair – Merlin had been expecting another horrible wooden chair like the ones outside – and Merlin sat down. After a minute, Arthur stopped typing, and turned to Merlin.

“I have my father’s bank statements and managed to get some information from his accountant. It’s ridiculous, he keeps paper copies of everything. Fortunately his accountant doesn’t. ” Arthur spun his chair round and pulled out five file folders from the bottom of the bookcase behind him. “So I need your help going through these.”

“Thanks for doing this, I know it’s difficult…” Merlin started, but Arthur cut him off.

“If you’re right and he’s doing this, then it’s wrong. If he isn’t, then I want to be able to prove he’s innocent.”

Merlin nodded. He opened the folder Arthur dropped in front of him and started reading the bank statements. In turn, Arthur opened up some spreadsheets on his computer that were filled with numbers and looked too complicated for Merlin, and busied himself with searching through Uther’s accountant’s records.

It was tedious work. Most of the statements showed nothing out of the ordinary, until Merlin spotted that Uther was transferring exactly £4362.47 to an unknown account every month. That the account was unknown wasn’t particularly suspicious, there were all sorts of reasons for an account being unknown – it could be a direct debit to a closed account that was never cancelled - but it was an unusual amount and didn’t occur on exactly the same day each month, like an arranged transfer should. The dates were always a day or two apart, as if Uther was trying to make it look like it was automatic, but occasionally forgot.

“Do you have the files of your father’s diary on your computer?” Merlin asked.

Arthur paused in his scrolling through whatever spreadsheet he was on, and moved his mouse. After clicking a few times, Arthur turned the monitor around so Merlin could see it.

“What do you need?”

Merlin looked down at the statement that was currently at the top of his pile. It was one of the months when Uther had transferred the money two days later than usual.

“Do you have the one from the first week in November?”

Arthur clicked through a few of the files until he found the one Merlin wanted. He made it full screen and Merlin carefully read through Uther’s original diary entries, and Arthur’s notes. There was nothing there.

“How about the next week?”

Arthur pressed a button and the next diary page filled the screen. This time, Merlin spotted right away what he was looking for.

“There,” he said, pointing at the Tuesday. There was a little red ‘A’ in the corner of the box. “Uther had a meeting with Agravaine because he transferred the money late.”

“What?”

“Every month, your father transfers £4362.47 to an unknown account. It’s usually the second of each month, but every now and then it isn’t, and when it isn’t, I’ll bet on my mother’s life that they like to set up a meeting to encourage him to remember in future.”

There was silence. Then –

“They’re threatening him?” Arthur asked.

“I don’t know, it’s a possibility. We need to know more.”

“I could ask him…”

“And how would you explain how you know about it in the first place? We need to find out without him knowing.”

Arthur frowned and turned the computer screen back round. Merlin went back to going through the statements, but there was nothing else of interest. The payments to the unknown account went further back than nine months, when the murders had started, but eventually they started becoming less, and then they disappeared entirely.

Three years ago.

Uther had been funding the S.C.F. for three years, and they’d only just started murdering people less than a year ago. What were they planning? What the police knew of them, all they aimed to do was cure sorcerers of magic, but did it really take that long and that much money to start it?

Merlin let his mind wander and consider all the options he could think of. There had to be a bigger plan, it was the only thing that made sense. Kill enough sorcerers to scare them all into hiding, and then what? They could try to make using magic illegal, but what was the point if everyone was too scared to use it anyway?

Merlin’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. He turned to look at Arthur, who was looking at him, confused. Before Arthur could tell whoever it was to come in, the door opened, and Morgana strode in.

“Arthur, I need to –” Morgana paused when she caught sight of Merlin. “What are you doing here?”

“He’s here at my request,” Arthur said frostily. “What do you want?”

“To speak with you in private.”

“Go ahead.”

“It’s not private if he’s here.” Morgana was refusing to look at Merlin. Merlin went back to looking through the statements, but he was only pretending to read them.

“Anything you have to say you can say in front of Drake.”

“Arthur.” Morgana sounded like she was speaking through gritted teeth.

“Morgana.”

Morgana snapped. “No, you know what? I’m fed up with you using your position just so you can persuade Uther to hire people you’ve decided are going to be your next fuck. I’ve seen it happen too many times now and they always end up resigning after you’ve ditched them for somebody else. Or they get murdered, like the last two did.”

Merlin glanced up through his eyelashes to see that Arthur had gone pale, but Morgana wasn’t finished.

“Admittedly, I’m surprised at how long this one’s lasted but just because you’re sleeping with him doesn’t mean he gets to know confidential information about the company. Pryce – get out.”

Merlin stayed where he was. Arthur flashed him a small smile before addressing Morgana.

“I’m not sleeping with Drake, and how about you tell me what you want to talk to me about and I can decide whether he gets to stay seeing as I know exactly what he knows about the company.”

Merlin didn’t have to look at Morgana to picture her facial expression. She’d be staring at Arthur, lips pursed and eyes narrowed, in an attempt to stare him down. Morgana had an unnatural ability to not need to blink and right now she’d be using that talent to try to unnerve Arthur.

Arthur didn’t back down, and eventually, Morgana spoke, “The lab tour next week. I’m going with you.”

“No you’re not.”

“Excuse me?”

“They’re only letting me bring one extra person so Drake is coming.”

“I am?” Merlin looked up at Arthur properly this time.

“I was going to mention it.”

Merlin nodded and looked back at the papers on the desk.

“He has no right going!” Morgana shouted. “He doesn’t need to go, what will you gain by taking him with you? He’s a nobody from the HR department, he doesn’t know anything about the labs. I should go, I need to find out –”

Morgana didn’t finish her sentence, but it had caught Merlin’s attention, and Arthur’s too, apparently, because he said, “What do you need to find out?”

Morgana hesitated. “The thefts. I went to the police about the thefts.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Merlin saw Arthur glance at him, but Merlin kept his head down.

“When?” Arthur asked.

“I don’t know. The beginning of December, maybe,” said Morgana. “I’ve been meeting them in private for some time. They approached me, but I didn’t tell them anything for a while, I was trying to sort it out myself. ”

Merlin was both surprised and not by this information. It wasn’t unusual for the police to try to infiltrate a company in more than one way, especially without telling everyone involved. He was more surprised that he hadn’t managed to figure it out himself. The anonymous tip off that Kilgharrah had had about the chemical thefts could only have come from someone high up in the company, and it explained why Morgana sometimes disappeared without explanation.

Arthur was staring at Merlin. Merlin raised his head and stared back. Arthur cocked his head to the side, Merlin shrugged. Arthur frowned in response and Merlin raised an eyebrow.

“There’s more to this than I know, isn’t there?” Morgana asked, her gaze switching between the two of them as they carried on their silent conversation.

“Yes.”

It was Merlin who answered her, his voice strong and not betraying any of the bitterness he felt at the revelation of why she disliked him so much.

“It’s under control,” said Arthur.

Arthur and Morgana stared at each other for a long time. Unlike the silent conversation, Merlin and Arthur had had, they appeared to have one without any change in facial expressions. Their eyes would flicker to one side, and the other would understand perfectly what they meant by it. It was almost instinctive, and they must have perfected it while growing up together.

“Can you stop them?” said Morgana, after several minutes of silence. Her voice was no more than a whisper, but it cracked the silence as if it was thunder.

“We’re going to do our best.” Arthur said.

“Do better.”

Morgana glanced at them both – her gaze lingered on Merlin a second longer, a crease briefly appearing between her eyebrows – before turning on her heel and walking out.

ooOOoo

It had been a hectic week; risk assessments had been filled out and signed, Merlin had been prepped on health and safety in the labs that amounted to “don’t touch anything”, and he and Arthur had discussed how they were going to act. It had been made marginally easier by the fact that Morgana had stopped hating him outright, and had now started treating him like a puzzle that she was trying to solve. Merlin let her – he wasn’t going to tell her who he was like he had told Arthur because he didn’t need more people knowing his secret, but there was no harm in letting her try to figure him out. He didn’t act any differently and he knew it frustrated her that there was something that she didn’t know.

On the day of the lab tour, Merlin and Arthur went out to lunch. It was the first time they had done so since before Christmas, and it surprised Merlin how easily they settled back into it. They chatted about nothing in particular, deliberately avoiding discussing work, but Merlin could tell that Arthur was on edge. After all, they weren’t just going for a casual tour of the labs: Arthur was undertaking a general inspection, and Merlin’s official reason for going was to collect payroll information, but they were both trying to catch out anyone acting suspicious.

“Arthur,” Merlin said after Arthur had been staring blankly across the room for five minutes. Arthur blinked several times and turned to Merlin. “You’re not worried, are you? It’s going to be ok.”

“I know.” Arthur took a bite of his sandwich. “I’m fine.”

Merlin didn’t believe him. He also didn’t press the subject, deciding that he might be better off trying to get Arthur to talk about something else.

“What are you doing at the weekend?”

Arthur shrugged. “Not a lot.” He put down his half-eaten sandwich. “Come on, we should go.”

Arthur stood up, and Merlin hurriedly finished the last of his salad. They walked back to the office in silence, Merlin’s discomfort growing the longer the silence stretched, and he was going to kill Arthur. His worrying was infectious, and Merlin’s stomach was now in knots, despite there being nothing that could go wrong. The worst anyone could do was point out that he didn’t need to be there but it was too late for anyone to call them out on that.

When they got back to the office, Arthur led the way to his car. It was black and sleek and shiny, and a complete opposite to Merlin’s rusting old thing. The leather seats squeaked as Merlin sat down, and when the doors were closed the new car smell was almost overwhelming.

Arthur drove in silence, giving Merlin plenty of time to stare out the window and watch the city skyscrapers be replaced by suburbs, and then countryside, where the houses suddenly disappeared. It felt like they were surrounded by fields for miles around, the sky large and blue above them.

About ten minutes into the drive, Merlin spotted the blue sedan behind them. It was still two cars behind them several minutes, three crossroads and a roundabout later.

It wasn’t a car that Merlin recognised; he’d started to notice a car following him home from work every day for the past fortnight. It was never the same car, and it didn’t follow him to work, but every evening someone would follow him until he pulled into his driveway and they would drive past, seemingly happy that Merlin had arrived home. Merlin always did his best to pretend that he hadn’t noticed the cars, and as far as he could tell, whomever was driving them didn’t know he knew they were there. He never explicitly looked at them, never looking up from locking his car as they drove past, and he didn’t look around the _Pendragon_ car park to try to spot which one was going to follow him home that day.

Merlin did the same now. He drummed his fingers on the window, stared out of the window some more, and looked over at Arthur, whose arms were tense. He was sitting straight up, focussing a little too much on the road ahead.

Merlin hoped that the back-up he’d requested wasn’t as bloody useless at following them as the people keeping watch on him was. In theory, the tour shouldn’t require back-up, but Merlin had made it his own protocol to have someone else on hand whenever his undercover work took him anywhere out of the ordinary. Sometimes it just meant someone would be at the station ready to receive any texts he sent, or, like now, he’d request to have someone follow him in case there was an opportunity to gain further information that Merlin wouldn’t be able to get without breaking his cover.

The lab was located forty-five minutes out of Camelot in a refurbished warehouse surrounded by wire fencing. When they arrived, Merlin found that the site only had one entrance, and the attendant sitting at the booth checked Merlin’s and Arthur’s I.D. cards before raising the barrier to let them in. Merlin glanced in the rear view mirror just in time to see the blue car drive past the entrance.

Arthur parked the car in a reserved spot in front of reception, where a middle-aged man with thinning blonde-white hair met them. He wore a lab coat over black dress trousers and a dark blue button-up shirt. He introduced himself as Dr. Aredian, one of the lab technicians who overlooked the goings on in the laboratories. After they had all introduced themselves, Aredian led them into the building proper, but not before narrowing his eyes at Merlin. Merlin ignored him, falling into step behind Arthur.

Merlin and Arthur were equipped with lab coats and glasses, and taken through a series of doors that were password locked before they entered a corridor decorated in varying shades of beige, and with linoleum that squeaked as they walked. Aredian took them into each lab along the corridor, briefly explaining what each one was used for before moving on. It felt as if he was rushing them around the labs, trying to get them in and out in record time. They’d barely walk into a room before he’d gesture for them to leave again. After this happened for the fifth time, Arthur fixed him with a steely look, before walking to one of the researchers in the lab and starting to ask her questions.

This annoyed Aredian. He stood stock still while Arthur asked the researcher his questions, and when Arthur finished Aredian smiled widely at him, and asking far too sweetly, “Is that everything?” When Arthur replied in the affirmative, the smile dropped from Aredian’s face and he glowered at nothing in particular as they left the room.

The next half hour passed in much the same way: Aredian would show them into a lab, explain what research was done in there, and make as if he wanted to leave but then Arthur would walk over to someone. Merlin made an effort to stand out of the way, not understanding the scientific language being thrown around, and trying to get on Aredian’s good side.

They had just walked out of the lab where they were researching into new antibiotics when Aredian’s phone rang.

“Excuse me,” he said, pressing a button on his phone and raising it to his ear while walking far enough away that it was difficult for Merlin to overhear what he was saying.

“Well?” Arthur muttered into Merlin’s ear.

“Nothing suspicious so far.”

“Apart from him.” Arthur nodded in Aredian’s direction. “Doesn’t want us here too long, even though the tour was booked for the whole afternoon.”

“Yeah…”

Aredian was walking back towards them, angrily stuffing his phone back in his pocket.

“I’m sorry about that,” Aredian said, not letting his anger seep into his voice. “There’s a delivery that I need to supervise, if you don’t mind waiting in reception for me –”

“How about we oversee the delivery?” interrupted Arthur. “This is an inspection, after all. It would be good if we saw how you dealt with a large delivery.”

Aredian smiled just a second too late and for too long for it to be genuine. “Of course. If you’ll follow me.”

Aredian led them down a stairwell with concrete walls and metal stairs to the delivery entrance to the building.

A white van was reversing into the large garage where a small crowd of people were already gathered. Aredian didn’t bother introducing Merlin and Arthur to everyone; he walked in with a confident stride, picking up a clipboard from the top of a set of metal cabinets as he approached the others. Merlin and Arthur hung back near the door, half not wanting to get in the way, half wanting to be able to keep everyone in their line of sight.

“Right, everyone. You know the drill. Let’s empty the van so Valient can get on his way,” said Aredian.

Everyone sprang into action. The driver – Valient – got out of the van and opened the back doors, allowing the people helping to pull out boxes of jars and bottles filled with multi-coloured liquids and powders. They placed them in front of Aredian, who was hurriedly writing on his clipboard.

Arthur moved from where he was stood beside Merlin. Merlin watched him do a circuit of the room, inspecting the state of the storage containers, and slowing down when he was passing the back of the van. Every now and then, Aredian would hesitate before writing something down, glance round to see where Arthur was, and only when he was sure that Arthur wasn’t watching him too carefully would he note down what he was going to. Eventually Arthur stopped next to Aredian, peering over his shoulder to see what he was writing.

“Oi,” Aredian said, not even looking up. “You’re in my way.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows, and stared at Aredian. Aredian didn’t notice, he was too busy scribbling notes down, but the man who was walking towards them carrying a box full of plastic white containers saw Arthur’s expression and stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Aredian snapped at the man. The man was looking at Arthur warily, and Merlin would have been impressed at Aredian’s stupidity if he hadn’t realised that Arthur was glaring at him, even without turning to look.

“What did you say to me?” Arthur said.

Aredian didn’t answer. He didn’t turn to look at him, he just stared down at the paper he had been writing on.

“Do you speak to my father like that? You do realise that, as the boss’s son and your superior, you owe me some amount of respect.”

The room had gone silent, there wasn’t even the sound of people walking and picking up heavy boxes, as they had all stopped to watch Arthur and Aredian. The tension in the room was palpable.

On the other hand, Merlin did his best not to smile. Arthur-the-boss’s-son was so far from the Arthur he knew that he couldn’t help but find it funny. Rather than attract attention to himself, Merlin pulled out his phone and started flicking through the texts he had received. There was one from Kilgharrah, asking for an update on the situation, another from Mordred confirming that the back-up he had requested had been dispatched, and three from Gwaine. Merlin had to refrain from rolling his eyes. One of the texts was confirmation that he had eyes on the building, the other two were asking whether Merlin wanted to go for a beer after work, and that Gwaine had a friend who might be interested in being set up on a date with him, if Merlin fancied it.

Merlin put his phone away, and when he looked up again, the people helping to unload the van were moving again and the tension in the room had lessened. Arthur was still staring at Aredian though. Merlin slowly walked closer to them, staying at the edge of the room so Aredian wouldn’t notice him.

“There are twenty-five bottles in that box, not twenty,” Arthur said. He paused, and continued, “Why haven’t you written down that Ms. Gawant is here? The box at the top is for making note of who helped with the deliveries.”

A woman with long blonde hair and her fringe pinned back – presumably Ms. Gawant –looked around but quickly went back to work.

“I’m sorry, _sir_. I’m having trouble concentrating with you breathing down my neck. I must have missed Ms. Gawant when I was filling in that part.”

Arthur “hmphed” and let Aredian get back to work. Occasionally he’d point something out that Aredian had missed, but for the most part Arthur kept quiet.

Merlin watched the others. They all worked efficiently and there wasn’t any indication of foul play. It wasn’t long until they had the van completely unloaded, and the assistants were hanging around, waiting for Aredian’s next orders. Aredian was still writing notes on his clipboard, but he looked up when he realised that the others had finished.

“What are you waiting for? Go back to work.”

“But, Seb, we normally help you take these up to be sorted.”

“Not today,” Aredian snapped. “I have to finish giving Mr Pendragon the tour.”

“Oh, don’t mind us,” said Arthur. “We can wait. In fact, Drake and I will help.”

Arthur looked around for Merlin, momentarily surprised when he didn’t find him next to the door. Merlin cleared his throat, and Arthur caught his gaze. Without a word, Merlin stepped forward.

Arthur didn’t help carry the boxes upstairs, and neither did Aredian. They both stood back and watched as Merlin joined the others in loading the heaviest of the boxes onto the trolley to go up in the lift, and then picking up the rest that could be carried up the stairs. Merlin had the distinct feeling that Arthur and Aredian were having a silent battle over who could be the biggest asshole. He didn’t normally condone deliberately being an ass, but in this case, Merlin was hoping Arthur would win.

It didn’t take long to move the delivery to the stores upstairs. As they were putting the bottles on the correct shelves, Merlin tried to keep an eye on Aredian, but he didn’t need to; Arthur was always a few steps behind Aredian, watching what he was doing and pointing out whenever he noticed that Aredian had forgotten to make a note of something on his clipboard, or put a bottle on the wrong shelf. Every time Arthur did this, Aredian would grit his teeth, nod in agreement, and move or write down what Arthur had told him. If they’d been in a cartoon, Aredian would have had smoke coming out of his ears a long time ago, but as it was, he kept mostly silent and did what Arthur told him to.

They finished the tour of the lab in much the same way as they had started it. Arthur stopped dragging out the time they spent in each room, and he hung back with Merlin when they walked between labs. Constantly having Arthur behind him appeared to have made Aredian twitchy, because he kept glancing behind him to make sure they were still there, and in the brief seconds that they were in each room, his eyes would flicker around, as if looking for an escape.

By the time they finished the tour, it was half four and people had started packing up for the day. Merlin still had to get the payroll information from the senior research team who had offices in the labs. Aredian had to be prompted to show Merlin the way to the offices, and when Arthur didn’t immediately join them, he got angry.

“Why are you standing there?” Aredian asked in the tone of voice usually reserved for drivers shouting at pedestrians who were in the road.

“You don’t need me to go with you, do you Drake?”

Merlin shook his head. “No.”

“Well, I think I can make my own way down to reception, I’ll meet you there.” Arthur smiled.

“You’re not authorised to be walking around on your own. Follow us and then I’ll take you down to the entrance.”

“But then you’d have to go all the way back up to bring Drake down.” Arthur’s grin grew wider. “I’ll manage.” Without another word, Arthur turned around and walked down the corridor.

Aredian was fuming. He led Merlin up to where the offices were situated, and then left, muttering something about Arthur that Merlin didn’t quite catch.

Not wanting to hang around too long, Merlin knocked on each office door and had each occupant fill in the forms that he’d been carrying around. No one made a fuss about it, and for that he was grateful, because right now he just wanted to get out of there.

Merlin found Arthur in the reception fifteen minutes later, sitting in one of the armchairs by the desk.

“Done?” Arthur asked, standing up and heading towards the door.

“Yes.” Merlin fell into step next to Arthur. They walked out the door and into the chilly January air. “What did you find?”

Arthur looked sideways at him and smirked. Merlin shrugged.

“Not a lot,” said Arthur. “It took me a while to find his office, and by that time he was back. Told him I’d took a wrong turn and was trying to orientate myself but he didn’t believe me. He brought me to reception.”

“I’m not surprised,” Merlin snorted. “It’s not like you were behaving like you had it out for him all afternoon or anything.”

Merlin pulled out his phone to text Gwaine. There was definitely something going on with Aredian and it was worth looking into.

They made it to the car, and Arthur unlocked it. Once they’d both climbed in, Arthur turned the heating on, and they sat in silence for a moment, warming themselves.

They were out of the lab site and back on the motorway before either of them spoke again.

“I’ll get him fired,” said Arthur. “Make something up about not being competent, shouldn’t be too hard.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“We don’t want Uther getting suspicious and thinking that we’re onto him. I’ve texted my superiors and back-up. They’ll follow him from work and put scryers on him to see if he goes anywhere or meets anyone suspicious.”

Arthur was silent for a long time, thinking. Merlin let him. The fields had turned back to houses with large front gardens when Arthur spoke again.

“Scryers find people?”

“Yeah.”

“So why can’t you just scry anyone and find out where the murderers are?”

“You need a good idea of their location, a city or even street isn’t always good enough. You’d also need to be doing it all the time to catch someone out, and scrying is exhausting, especially when the person you’re looking for is moving.”

“Can you do it?”

Merlin shook his head. “Scryers are born. You either have the gift or not. We have a small department of them, but it’s a rare talent. None of the scryers leave the station while they’re on duty, we can’t afford to lose any of them.”

“You said it’s a gift. Scrying, having magic… do you really think that?”

“Yes.” Merlin paused. “We just live in a society that treats it like a curse. I was raised to think of it as… something not to be scared of. It was something that I could do, like some people are good at maths, or can play football. It wasn’t something to be ashamed of.”

“But it’s never been safe to use, not while we’ve been alive.”

“No. I knew not to use it in public, but I also knew not to hate myself for it, because it’s a part of me and I can’t change that.”

Arthur nodded, and his attention went back to the road. They didn’t talk again for the rest of the drive. Merlin was too busy going over what had happened at the lab, sorting things through in his head and making connections. He wanted to get home to where his files were so he could fact check and make sure what theories he was putting together weren’t complete nonsense.

Merlin was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t immediately notice that Arthur had pulled up in the Pendragon offices car park.

Arthur cleared his throat. “We’re here.”

“What – oh. Great. Thanks for the lift.” Merlin opened the passenger door. “Aren’t you coming back in to get your stuff?”

“I locked up earlier, and I don’t need any of my work.”

“Ok, sure.” Merlin climbed out of the car. “See you tomorrow.”

“Merlin…” Arthur said, just as Merlin was about to close the door. “I’m sorry my father’s involved in this.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I should have known this was going on, I don’t know how I missed it.”

“Stop it,” Merlin said, his voice hard. Arthur looked at him in surprise. “Don’t start blaming yourself, it doesn’t get us anywhere. We’ve got a proper lead now, we can do this.”

“Sure.” Arthur turned away and stared out the windscreen.

“Hey.” Merlin leaned over the passenger seat and put his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. He stayed like that until Arthur turned back to look at him. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Merlin squeezed Arthur’s shoulder, immediately pulling away before he did something stupid. He closed the car door and waved as Arthur drove away.

Walking back to the office so he could collect his belongings that he’d left there in the morning, Merlin caught sight of the blue sedan that had been following them earlier. It was parked behind his own car, but he didn’t dare try to get a good look at who was driving.

The car had gone by the time Merlin returned from his office.

ooOOoo

When Merlin got into the office two days later, he was the first one there. Merlin turned on his computer, logged in, and opened his emails as normal.

What wasn’t normal was the email at the top of his inbox from one of the women in PR with the subject heading: _Condolences_.

Merlin opened the email.

_Dear all,_

_It is with great regret that we inform you that our laboratory technician, Dr. Sebastian Aredian, has passed away. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time._

_We know that Dr. Aredian had many friends within the company, and if anyone requires the use of our counselling service then you can ring the extension number 88649 to book an appointment._

_We would like to ask that if any of our employees are approached by the media regarding this sad occurrence that you decline to comment._

Merlin froze at his desk.

No way. This was too much of a coincidence. There were no details, but Merlin knew that something was wrong with it. Something he and Arthur had done at the lab had caused this, but Merlin didn’t know what. Gwaine had followed Aredian home that night with nothing out of the ordinary happening, and Merlin had thought that maybe they’d been suspicious of him for no reason and he was just unpleasant to be around.

This changed things though. Merlin pressed the palm of his hand to his forehead, trying to think. It had to be related to the S.C.F., but why had Aredian been killed? Was it a punishment of some sort? A warning to Uther?

He needed to talk to Arthur. Maybe he knew more details about what had happened.

Merlin was about to open up a new email when his phone vibrated. He frowned; it was an unknown number. Merlin hesitated for a moment, before pressing the answer button.

“Hello?”

“Merlin, it’s Arthur.”

Relief washed over Merlin. “Oh, hi. How did you get my number?”

“I have access to your files, remember?”

“Oh yeah. What’s up?”

“Have you heard about Aredian?”

“Yes, do you know anything - ?”

“Not a lot, I’ll tell you later.” For the first time, Merlin realised that Arthur sounded like he was rushing to tell Merlin something he wasn’t supposed to know. His voice was low and had an edge to it that Merlin couldn’t quite decipher, but could have been nerves. “I’ve just come back from my father’s office, I had to go see him about Aredian. His PA wasn’t there yet, and he had his office door open, but he didn’t notice me arrive and –”

“Arthur, slow down, I can barely understand you.”

There was a pause, in which Merlin imagined Arthur was took a deep breath.

“I overheard him on the phone. He sounded angry, and said something about someone making a mistake. But he said he’d meet whoever he was talking to at noon.”

Merlin’s heart skipped a beat. “Did you get an address?” He looked around his desk, looking for a pen and something to write on, before giving up and opening a document on the computer for him to write in.

“Yes, 52 Westmorland Road. I’ve looked it up, it’s an abandoned shop just out of the city centre between a florists and a butchers.”

Merlin typed the address into the computer and said, “At twelve you said?”

“Yes. Merlin?”

“Yep?”

“What are we going to do?”

Merlin noticed the use of the word ‘we’.

“ _We_ aren’t going to do anything. You’re going to stay in your office while I get this dealt with.”

“Merlin…”

“No. I know this whole thing has upset you, and you’ve been taking it as a personal offence, but you’re not trained to deal with any of this.”

“You’re the one who brought me into it.”

“To help collect information! Not to go storming in and arrest your own father. Leave it to me.”

The office door opened with a squeak that made Merlin jump. Gwen and Sefa walked in laughing, quietening when they saw Merlin on the phone.

“I’ve got to go,” Merlin said. “Don’t worry about anything.”

He hung up before Arthur could reply.

“Sorry, did we interrupt something?” Gwen asked as Merlin put his phone in his pocket.

“No, everything’s fine.” Merlin stared grimly at the single line of text on his computer screen. “I’ll be right back.”

Merlin got up, making sure that he closed the window with the address on, and walked outside to Gwen’s and Sefa’s startled expressions.

He spent the next hour ringing his supervisors and coming up with a plan. While he did this, he walked through the corridors, avoiding the busier ones where people might overhear him. He was put on hold several times, much to his annoyance, and when Kilgharrah told him “see you in an hour” and hung up with no other explanation, Merlin spent ten minutes ringing him back before he picked up and Merlin demanded an explanation of what the plan was.

Eventually, everything was in place. Merlin had a minute by minute plan of what was going to happen. He was going to be involved in the stakeout, which he had expected, but had been dreading telling Arthur, until Kilgharrah had told him to bring Arthur along. Merlin had protested – quietly, because a group of people from one of the other HR offices had walked past at that moment – but he’d been overruled. Kilgharrah had said that Arthur would help them predict Uther’s behaviour, and might make him more likely to admit to what he had done. Merlin couldn’t come up with an argument against that quickly enough, and Kilgharrah had moved on.

He didn’t like it though. Knowing how Arthur had taken the revelation that his father was involved with the S.C.F., Merlin didn’t think Arthur should be put into a situation where he would see evidence of it first-hand. Merlin didn’t know what Arthur would do, but getting angry and confronting his father himself was a good possibility, and he wondered whether a group of police officers – including two sorcerers – would be able to restrain him.

It didn’t matter though, Merlin had his orders. On his way back to his office, Merlin texted Arthur.

_Meet me @ my car 10:30_

Arthur’s reply was short.

_Ok_

Back in his office, Tristan and Isolde had arrived. Merlin pre-emptively waved off their questions with a quick “had to make some phone calls” and sat down at his desk.

Merlin only had twenty minutes until he was meeting Arthur and he couldn’t concentrate. He hadn’t even started any work in the morning, and he knew that he had a long list of things that needed to be done today, but he couldn’t bring himself to do even the simplest. Merlin was too tense, unable to focus on his breathing to relax and he jumped every time a drawer was shut loudly, or a door in the corridor slammed.

At half past ten, Merlin got up from his desk. Sefa briefly glanced in his direction but didn’t say anything. Merlin didn’t pack up his desk, or pick anything up; his phone, keys, and wallet were in his pockets, and he wouldn’t need anything else that was in his office. The less it looked like Merlin was disappearing for a significant amount of time the better – he didn’t need anyone wondering where he was going until he was long gone.

If this worked as well as Merlin hoped it would, then he wouldn’t be coming back to work at Pendragon.

Arthur was already waiting by Merlin’s car when Merlin reached the car park. He was leaning against the passenger side door, not wearing a coat and shivering.

“Hi,” Arthur said when Merlin was close enough to hear him.

Merlin nodded in response.

“What’s the matter?” asked Arthur as Merlin unlocked the car and they sat inside.

Merlin turned the engine on. “My superior told me to bring you along, but I don’t think you should come with us.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re too emotionally involved and haven’t been trained to follow orders. I’m afraid you’ll get in the way.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. Promise me you’ll do what any of the other officers tell you to do. I don’t want you getting seen or hurt.”

“I promise.”

“Mean it, Arthur.”

“I promise I’ll do what I’m told.”

Merlin let out a deep breath and felt some of the tension leave his body. “Okay, let’s go.”

Westmorland Road wasn’t far from the Pendragon offices, but the city centre traffic and one-way streets in odd locations made it difficult to get there. Merlin muttered under his breath angrily every time they were forced to stop at a red light, their progress slowed down even further.

They drove past the abandoned shop that was to be Uther’s meeting place, and parked the car around the corner. Glancing round, Merlin recognised a handful of cars parked around them. Someone was sat in the driver’s seat of two of them, but the rest were empty. Merlin made no indication that he had seen Gwaine and Perce, and they ignored him – or they might not have seen him in the first place.

Merlin grabbed his police I.D. from the glove compartment and shoved it in his pocket. He and Arthur got out of the car, and Merlin locked it up while Arthur stood awkwardly, looking around as if he was lost. When Merlin started walking towards the abandoned shop, Arthur followed without a word.

There was an alleyway behind the shop where the back entrance was, and this was where they were meeting the rest of the team. Leon and Mordred were already there when Merlin and Arthur turned the corner into the alley. Leon looked up when he heard their footsteps, but didn’t acknowledge them in any way, whereas Mordred waved when he saw Merlin. Merlin grinned back.

Leon was fiddling with something in his hand, his curly light brown hair getting in his eyes as he looked down at whatever it was, and he’d sweep it back every few seconds only for it to get in his way again. Mordred had both of his hands cupped in front of him, and it looked like he was holding more of the things that Leon had. They were both wearing their police uniform: black trousers and shirt with a black bullet-proof vest over the top. They weren’t wearing their hats and had left their radios somewhere else too.

“Hi,” Merlin said as he approached them. Leon didn’t say anything, but Mordred greeted him with a friendly hello, his gaze wandering to over Merlin’s shoulder. “Arthur, this is Mordred and Leon.”

“Hello,” said Arthur. Mordred nodded and smiled.

Now that they were closer, Merlin could see that Mordred was holding a handful of earpieces and that Leon was fiddling with the buttons on one.

Mordred saw Merlin looking. “We’re going to have Mithian on the other end so she can tell us when Pendragon’s coming, Leon’s just adjusting the signal.”

“I don’t understand how people manage to make them lose the signal, there’re only four that we use and they’re built in,” Merlin said.

“Me neither, it takes someone very clever to break them this much.”

“Or very stupid.”

“Done,” Leon said, slipping the earpiece over his ear. “I’ve already tested the others, they’re fine.”

Merlin picked up one of the earpieces out of Mordred’s hands and put it on. Arthur was standing behind him, and Merlin nudged him in the ribs.

“What?”

“You need an earpiece too.”

Mordred offered him one, and Arthur took it. As he was trying to put it on properly, Gwaine and Perce appeared at the opposite end of the alley that Merlin and Arthur had come from. They walked towards them, greeting Merlin and Arthur when they reached the little group, and grabbed earpieces from Mordred.

“Right,” Leon said, before Gwaine could start chatting. It was Leon’s let’s-get-down-to-business voice, and they all knew that when he used it, he was one hundred percent focused on the mission at hand. “We have scryers on Pendragon senior. Mithian is going to be on the other end of the earpieces so she can tell us when he’s approaching. We aren’t going to have any warning about the other guy coming though so no slacking off just because it’s quiet, everyone got that?”

Everyone nodded.

“Me and Perce have already done a sweep of the building. There aren’t any bugs anywhere, and it looks like an abandoned building they decided to use for today because it’s abandoned, No signs it of being used regularly. The door here –” Leon gestured towards the painted black door in the wall next to them “- leads into the back room. There are three doors out of there, one goes into a cupboard, one a bathroom, and the other into the old store front.

“The plan is for Mordred to stay out here. He can give us some warning about when Pendragon and our S.C.F. member are arriving, but it’s unlikely to be much notice. You’re also going to raise wards on the building as soon as both of them are in there so that if either of them have back-up they can’t get in, but also so they can’t escape.”

Mordred nodded to show he understood, and Leon continued.

“The rest of us are going inside. My best guess is that they’ll have their meeting in the back room, so we’ll be able to hide in one of the rooms leading off that until it’s time to confront them.”

“He’s going to do a sweep of the building when he gets here,” Arthur said.

Leon raised his eyebrows at him. “How do you know?”

“Because I’ve met my father. I know how he acts when he hasn’t got the upper hand, and he doesn’t have that now.”

Gwaine smirked. Leon nodded, and looked at Merlin. “Can you put some sort of unnoticeable spell on us? There isn’t going to be an easy way for us to avoid him if he does a sweep.”

“Sure, hold on.” Merlin dug in his pockets for any useless items he might have. He found two pens, a paperclip, an old shopping list, and he got a penny from his wallet. Merlin put them all in his left hand, and placed his right hand a few centimetres above it. Concentrating on the feel of the items in his hand, Merlin muttered “ _Hanweldeg_ ” and felt his hand grow hot for a second, before it cooled and there was a gasp of shock from the others, but the loudest was from Arthur. Merlin put the items into his pocket, and there was another cry of surprise.

“It’s not the best, but if you hold the object that I give you then you’ll turn invisible. All you have to do is let go of them to be seen again, okay? Everyone put your hands out.”

Merlin picked up the items in his pocket again and placed one in Arthur’s, Gwaine’s, Leon’s, and Perce’s hands. They all momentarily turned invisible until they put their object in their pocket. Merlin first made sure that his pocket didn’t have a hole in it before dropping his paperclip in.

“Excellent,” Leon said. “We’re going to split up when we’re in there. I’m going to hide in the bathroom, Gwaine and Perce can hide in the store front, and Merlin and Arthur can go in the cupboard.”

Somehow, Merlin could tell that that was coming. The universe just didn’t like him that much. It was going to be awkward being in a small space with Arthur, but at least they had a job to do, and there wouldn’t be time to talk.

Merlin didn’t have time to dwell on the situation though, because Leon was still talking.

“Once we’re in there, no one acts until my say so. When I do say go, Merlin and Gwaine are to take down Pendragon, and me and Perce go for our other guy. If the situation changes, if there are more people, then under no circumstances does anyone try to be a hero. We wait for back-up.”

Everyone nodded in understanding. Leon pulled a Dictaphone out of his pocket, and continued,

“Mordred has charmed this so it gets a better pick up. I’ll have it on me and it’ll be recording the entire time we’re inside.”

Again, everyone nodded.

“Right, I think that’s everything –”

The earpiece crackled to life, and a familiar but staticy voice spoke through it, “M here, boys. Pendragon senior is leaving his office now, I’ll give you another heads up when he’s closer to your location. Over.”

“Thanks, Mith. Over,” said Leon. He looked around the group. “Right, boys. Let’s go.”

Mordred was the first to move, walking down the alley and round the corner, having obviously already scouted out a location where he could keep an eye on the situation without being seen. Leon walked over to the shop door, and everyone else followed. The door opened easily when Leon pulled the handle. He held it open while everyone entered the building one by one.

The door closed with a bang, and Merlin felt Arthur jump slightly behind him. The room they had entered was pitch-black. Leon, Gwaine, and Perce turned on their torches, directing them around the room so they could get a good look around. The floor was wooden, the walls plain brick, and Merlin could see dust floating in the air.

One of the torches focussed its beam of light on a door to Merlin’s right.

“Merlin and Arthur, get in there,” came Leon’s voice. The torchlight moved to another door. “Gwaine and Perce, that’s the store front. Turn your torches off before you go in, we don’t need people on the street seeing light coming from behind the boards on the windows.” The beam of light moved to another door. “That’s the bathroom, where I’ll be.

“Everyone, get in position.”

Merlin reached behind him for Arthur’s arm, and pulled him across the room to the first door. It took some forcing open, but Merlin managed it, and Arthur followed him in.

Before Merlin shut the closet door, he saw the torchlights from Gwaine and Perce’s torches disappear, and then Leon’s when the bathroom door closed. Merlin closed the closet door silently.

The cupboard was tiny, and Merlin and Arthur were forced to stand side by side with their backs against the shelves. Merlin couldn’t see Arthur in the darkness of the cupboard, but he could feel his chest rising and falling with his breathing.

Mithian’s voice crackled at them from over the earpiece, “Pendragon’s got an ETA of five minutes. Over.”

“Have you got your penny?” Merlin whispered.

There was the sound of a hand rustling in a pocket, and then a quiet, “Yes.”

Merlin nodded to himself. He searched his own pocket and held onto his paperclip.

Minutes later, Mordred spoke, “I have a visual on Pendragon. There doesn’t seem to be anyone with him. He’s got a briefcase, though. He’s walking towards the shop door now.”

There was the sound of the back door opening, and slow footsteps walking across the room. A light appeared below the door; Uther must have turned on the light in the other room. It still wasn’t enough to see by.

 It sounded as if Uther made a few laps of the room, checking for bugs of any sort. His footsteps kept getting louder and quieter, until they started continuing to grow louder. The cupboard door opened.

Merlin was blinded by the light entering the cupboard. Uther had found the lightswitch in the back room, and the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling lit up the room brighter than the sun. Merlin blinked a couple of times, and found himself face to face with Uther Pendragon.

He didn’t look any different to how he had been the last time Merlin had seen him close up, months ago. If anything, there were dark circles under his eyes from a sleepless night or two, but apart from that, his hair was parted in the same way, there were no new wrinkles, and his eyes were as hard as steel. He was carrying a brown briefcase like Mordred had said he was.

Uther closed the door. Merlin could hear his footsteps retreating, and the sound of another door being opened. He let the paperclip he had been holding fall into his pocket.

“I can’t believe this…” Arthur mumbled. Merlin moved his foot until he could feel Arthur’s and he pressed down on it softly.

“Shh.”

They listened to Uther’s footsteps for a long time. He never stayed still for very long, always walking around the room. Once, Merlin heard him sigh loudly as he passed the cupboard door.

“du Bois is here. Also no visible back-up,” came Mordred’s voice some time later. “Good luck, guys. Over.”

Merlin felt Arthur stiffen, but he didn’t move significantly. He hadn’t moved the entire time they had been hiding. Merlin was hopeful that Arthur had listened to him and was going to stay out of their way.

The sound of a door being forcefully pulled open broke the silence. There were loud footsteps that stopped suddenly.

 “You’re late.” Uther didn’t sound pleased.

“Now, now, Uther,” Agravaine said, and his voice was as slimy as Merlin could remember his hair being. “You’re hardly one to lecture about time management, our payment was late again this month…”

“So that’s why you had Aredian killed, I knew there had to be more to it than because he didn’t get the chemicals to you in time. You wanted to teach me a lesson. It seems to have backfired on you, without Aredian you won’t be able to obtain chemicals from my laboratories.”

Agravaine sounded like he was smiling. “Don’t worry yourself about that. Now give me the briefcase and we can leave.”

“I don’t think so. You’re forgetting that you haven’t delivered on all of your promises too,” Uther continued. “Drake Pryce is still alive.”

Merlin’s chest tightened, and he strained to hear Uther talking. Next to Merlin, Arthur shifted slightly. Merlin placed a hand on his arm.

“That’s because Drake Pryce doesn’t exist,” said Agravaine. “We’ve been following him, collecting information, turns out that the man you know as Drake Pryce is a police officer with the name Merlin Emrys.

“But really, we’ve had quite enough of murdering insignificant people as favours to you. First it was business competitors, then it was your son’s partners who you didn’t approve of. Honestly, we feel that the effort we put into killing these people isn’t worth the help that you give us.”

“Without me you’d have nothing,” Uther snarled.

“On the contrary, I think you’ll find that your involvement in our business affairs is no longer necessary.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“I wouldn’t count on that. You’ve been giving us money for years and never bothered to find out what we were using it for. We’ve managed to buy the support of several prominent politicians, not that they were that against our cause anyway. Do a few favours for them that they didn’t want to get their hands dirty with and soon they’re begging to repay us. We won’t need you when the laws pass that make our little operation we have legal.”

“ _This is enough_ ,” came Leon’s voice in Merlin’s ear. “ _We have what we need, let’s get them now before we lose our chance. On three…”_

Merlin felt Arthur take a step forward.

“No, Arthur,” Merlin whispered.

_“One...”_

Arthur ignored him. Merlin heard his footsteps as he took the few steps towards the door.

“ _Two_.”

“Come back. Stopstopstop – Leon!”

Leon stopped the countdown just as Arthur pulled open the door and stepped into the room. He made sure to slam the door closed behind him so that Merlin couldn’t see him wasn’t seen.

Loud chatter was coming through the earwig, but Merlin blocked it out. There was silence in the other room, until –

“Arthur? What are you doing here?” asked Uther.

“Maybe I should ask you that.” Arthur’s voice was cold, sending shivers down Merlin’s spine. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I can explain…”

“Really? Want to explain why you’ve been helping murder innocent people?”

Uther snorted. “Innocent? They’re sorcerers, they’ve never been innocent.”

“Edwin was!” Arthur shouted. “And Sophia! They’d never hurt anyone and you had them murdered just because you didn’t think they were appropriate for me, without even knowing that they used magic.”

“You knew they were sorcerers, and you still dated them? How dare you, after your mother -”

“Of course I knew, and they didn’t have anything to do with mum! They were children when mum died, they weren’t out there rioting.”

“All sorcerers are cut from the same cloth.”

“That’s like saying everyone without magic is the same, but you can still get assholes like you amongst the half-decent people!”

“You can’t talk to me like that!”

“I’ll do what I want –”

There was the bang of a gun being fired. Without taking a second to consider what he was doing, Merlin forced open the door and ran into the room, hand raised in case he needed to perform some quick magic.

Everyone else had had the same idea, because suddenly the room was full of people, and shouting that didn’t make any sense to Merlin. A cursory glance around the room saw that all the doors were open and everyone was rushing towards the centre, where Arthur, Uther, and Agravaine were standing. Merlin pushed people out of the way as he ran towards Arthur who was stumbling backwards, looking around him in a dazed state. Merlin caught him, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling on Arthur’s arm with the other.

“Come _on_ ,” Merlin shouted in Arthur’s ear.

Arthur was too stunned to move, and Merlin had to pull him out of the way towards the edge of the room. When Merlin had him there, he forced him to sit down, and only then did Merlin give himself time to realise that the arm Merlin hadn’t been holding was covered in blood. Arthur was staring blankly ahead of him and his pupils were dilated.

Merlin’s heart skipped a beat. His mind went blank for a second, staring at the hole in Arthur’s jacket and the blood seeping through the material.

Merlin knelt down beside Arthur, and put two fingers to his neck, searching for a pulse. It was fast, but it was there, and it was strong.

“Arthur – can you hear me?” Merlin shouted over the din that the others were making. He pulled off his suit jacket and bunched it up, putting pressure on Arthur’s arm where most of the blood was. Merlin didn’t look behind him, but he could hear the sounds of a scuffle going on, and he hoped that someone had had the sense to turn the safety back on the gun.

Arthur nodded, and mouthed “Yes.”

“Can you move your fingers?”

Arthur raised his left hand slightly and his fingers made a feeble attempt at moving. As he did, Arthur moaned in pain.

 “Okay, good,” Merlin whispered, more to himself than anything else. Then he put his free hand on Arthur’s cheek. He was cold, and Merlin had to push his panic down to where it could be ignored. “It’s going to be okay.”

Arthur nodded again. There was nothing else Merlin could do for him; he was in shock, but didn’t seem too bad, and Merlin didn’t have any first aid supplies to help him.

Merlin kept a hand on his blood stained jacket and turned around to examine the rest of the room. Uther was on his knees on the other side of the room with Gwaine stood behind him closing handcuffs around his wrists. Uther was staring at Arthur, eyes wide and mouth fallen open.

In the centre of the room, Agravaine was lying on his front, hands tied behind him with handcuffs, and Perce and Leon had their own guns pointed at him. The gun that had been fired had been kicked away from Agravaine and was lying several metres away from him.

“Arthur?” Uther shouted. “Are you alright?” He struggled in his handcuffs and Gwaine walked to stand in front of him, giving him a hard look. “He tried to shoot me! I need to know if my son’s going to be okay.”

“He’s going to be fine,” Merlin called across the room.

Mordred’s panicked voice was talking at them from the earwig.

“ _Guys, guys, what’s happened? Someone tell me what’s happened? Is everything ok? Do you need help?”_

“We’re fine, Drydon,” Leon said. “Was a bit of an incident, it’s all sorted now.”

“Mordred,” Merlin said. “Call for an ambulance and lower the wards on the door. Get back-up here so we can get Pendragon and Du Bois to the station.”

Leon, Gwaine, and Perce all looked at him in concern, and it was only then that they saw Arthur, pale and his left side covered in blood. Arthur’s head had shot up at the sound of his surname and he stared at Merlin with fear in his eyes.

Merlin felt his heart break to see Arthur look at him like that.

“Your father,” Merlin reminded Arthur, and Arthur blinked twice, his expression slowly turning back to normal, and he leaned his head back to rest against the wall.

Merlin shifted so that he was sat next to Arthur’s right side. He kept his hand on Arthur’s wound and put his other arm around Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur leaned into him, and they stayed like that until the ambulance arrived.

ooOOoo

_PENDRAGON ARRESTED FOR S.C.F. INVOLVEMENT_

_Yesterday, Uther Pendragon, CEO and founder of Pendragon Pharmaceuticals, was arrested for involvement of the so-called S.C.F. murders, along with Agravaine du Bois, a suspected prominent member of the terrorist organisation._

_The arrest was made yesterday lunchtime when a team of police officers received intelligence that Pendragon would be meeting with Du Bois to discuss the death of Dr Sebastian Aredian, which occurred earlier this week. After collecting evidence proving that Pendragon and Du Bois were involved in the murders, the team of officers – which contained two sorcerers – confronted the two men before making the arrests._

_Pendragon’s involvement with the S.C.F. is unclear, but it is thought that he used his position to provide the organisation with chemicals used in their fatal experiments to cure sorcerers of their magic, as well as funding the S.C.F. He is believed to have hired numerous S.C.F. members and bribed several existing employees in order to make the thefts and transfer of the chemicals as unnoticeable as possible._

_It is unknown whether the arrests will result in the end of the murders, the last of which occurred at the beginning of December._

_Arthur Pendragon, Uther Pendragon’s son, was unavailable for comment._

Merlin put down the paper and took a sip of his tea. It was lunchtime, and he was sitting in _The Coffee House_ , waiting. Someone had left the newspaper on the table, and had already made a complete hash of the crossword, which left Merlin to read the articles. Merlin had avoided reading the front page on his first read through, but when the person he was waiting for hadn’t turned up, he’d decided that reading anything was better than doing nothing.

Merlin glanced over at the entrance. Still nothing. Merlin had taken his illusion off now that he was no longer working undercover, and he was expecting to see who he was waiting for hanging by the door, looking round expectantly, but there was no one there. Admittedly, today was a bad day, and he hadn’t actually replied to Merlin’s text, but still –

“Fancy seeing you here,” a voice said from behind Merlin.

Merlin didn’t have time to turn around before Arthur strode into his view, sitting down on the chair opposite him and carefully setting his mug on the table. His arm was in a slingThere were dark circles under his eyes, and his mouth seemed to be permanently turned downwards. Arthur’s hair, that was usually kept perfectly smooth and in place, was sticking up in random places as if he’d ran his hand through it more times than you could count. His tie was askew, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and he gave off a general aura of exhaustion and annoyance.

“How’s your arm?”

“Painful, despite the anaesthetics, but the doctor said it hasn’t been damaged too badly. The bullet went straight through and didn’t hit any major nerves so I’ll be able to use it again.”

“That’s good.” Merlin nodded. He took a sip of his tea. “I thought you weren’t going to show up.”

“I was in the queue forever, which was fortunate, actually, because I almost didn’t recognise you without the illusion.” Shakily, Arthur raised his mug to his lips and took a long gulp.

“How bad is it?” Merlin asked.

“The coffee?” Arthur frowned. “Excellent, as usual.”

“I meant at work.”

“Oh, it’s chaos, stock prices have crashed, of course. No one seems to know what to do, even though the majority of people should just get on with their jobs. It’s ridiculous.” Arthur let out a deep breath. “It’ll get sorted out. I’m not supposed to be taking a long lunch break today, but nothing can get any worse right now.”

“You’re not supposed to be in work.”

“Well, no. Someone’s got to sort out the mess though. Plus, Morgana’s hovering around me like a mother hen, she’s not letting anyone get within a few feet of my arm. I’ll be fine.”

There was silence. Merlin watched Arthur look down at his mug.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, you were just doing your job. Speaking of, shouldn’t you be at the station?”

“Well… It’s amazing what a few well-chosen spells can do.”

“You skiver, hope you weren’t doing that while you were working for me.”

“I didn’t need to, you took me out for ridiculously long lunches nearly every day.”

Arthur laughed, and the bags under his eyes and permanent frown lessened for a moment while he allowed himself to be carefree. Then, his gaze caught sight of the newspaper on the table, and it was like all his worries smashed into him with the weight of a tonne of bricks. The smile faded faster than you could blink, the sparkle disappeared from his eyes, and he looked to Merlin like a desperate person looked to someone they knew was their only hope.

“Do you think it’ll stop now? All the murders and hate of magic?”

“People have feared magic for too long for them to stop overnight. It’ll take time, and we need to be pro-active about dealing with it, rather than ignoring it. But the S.C.F…” Merlin paused, collecting his thoughts. “We have leads. We can interrogate Agravaine and find out more, and there’s going to be an investigation in Parliament about what he said. At the worst they’ll go underground for a while and re-emerge later. If that happens, we can be more prepared.”

Arthur nodded. Then he coughed, clearing his throat, and looked around nervously.

“What about you? What are you doing now?”

Smirking, Merlin said, “Having tea with you.”

“Funny,” said Arthur, but he wasn’t smiling. Merlin frowned, wondering what Arthur was trying to say. “I just meant that, well. Now you’re not working for me, I wanted to know if, umm…”

“Arthur,” Merlin said with a smile. “Are you trying to ask me out?”

Arthur’s face went red, and he looked down. Merlin had to resist the urge to laugh. Instead, he leaned inwards, placing his hand over Arthur’s that was around his mug.

“I thought I’d beat you to it. Admittedly you didn’t reply, but you turned up which kind of suggests you said yes.”

Arthur looked up so fast Merlin almost jumped backwards in surprise. But Arthur was smiling shyly, his eyes wide in what might have been surprise, and he was staring at Merlin. Arthur didn’t move his hand, and neither did Merlin.

 


End file.
